Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant
by With Death Comes More Death
Summary: After being defeated in his fight against Arima, Kaneki blacks out and wakes up in the world of Remnant...
1. Chapter 1: Martyr Failure (re-rewrite)

So, hey guys and welcome to the third rewriting of the first chapter of this story… Wow, that's quite the mouthful.

Anyways, I didn't make this out of any self-loathing for myself this time. I just had this updated form of this chapter on me. Mainly because of the fact I tried to make it on spacebattles and failed… like super bad. I could seriously count the people following the story on a single hand.

Anyways, I spent hours editing the chapter, so I thought that I might as well put it on FF. Might as well make sure it doesn't go to waste, right? By the way, I gave the same treatment to the chapter after this, so check that out as well.

If you want a rundown as to what I changed… Um, I changed the general format of most of the dialogue and some of the dialogue itself, like the finishing line to the beowolf fight. I like the new one better than the old one, by the way, so go check that out, I guess.

Whatever… Here's the mandatory disclaimer and then here's the chapter.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I don't own either of these series, bro. Like not at all.

**-Chapter 1: Martyr Failure-**

He was a coward. That was the only thing he ever was.

He could try to disguise all of his real intentions behind pretty words about trying to protect the people he cared about, but deep down, he always knew that the only thing he was trying to do was protect himself. To protect himself from the one thing he feared most in the world.

And yes, he always was afraid.

Afraid of being left alone in this terribly unfair world again.

He thought by becoming stronger that he would be able to save himself from having to go through that despair again and so, with that motivating him, he pushed himself and pushed himself and pushed himself to become stronger.

He refused to be left alone again. He refused to allow the situation with his mother to repeat itself. So, to make sure that it would never happen, he fought with every ounce of strength he had, but in a cruel - yet admittedly expected twist of fate - his struggles only resulted in more tragedy.

His own situation ended up becoming a direct parallel to what it shouldn't, and he didn't even notice until it was too late.

His mother died because she bit off more than she could chew, working herself to the bone day in and day out. All to support the two people she cared about most in the world: her leech of a younger sister, who would consistently borrow money from her under the guise of desperation, and her only son, the last remaining remnant of the husband who passed long before he should've.

At first, he thought his mother a strong person for being able to support both with nary a complaint. He ended up thinking that most of the nineteen years he's been alive, but then, like all things tend to do, things changed.

He had been tricked into going down that alley by Rize, he had been crushed by steel beams courtesy of a clown, he had been turned into a ghoul by Kanou, he had been taught the basics of ghoul society by the ghouls at Anteiku, and, last but certainly not least, he had been sent through the wringer both physically and mentally by Yamori.

He could still remember the days he spent in that chair, being forced to be subject to Yamori's cruelty. If he was remembered things correctly, then he stayed - chained to that chair by his arms and legs - for a total of ten days before he managed to convince himself into renouncing what his mother had taught him. That his mother, despite how long she held out, was the farthest thing from a strong person. That her inability to cut her leech of a sister off was because she was too weak to do so.

Those just so happened to be one of the things that pushed him over the edge and finally made him accept the side of him that he had been repressing ever since that day - the day he first found out that he had been turned into a half-ghoul - or to be more specific, his ghoul side.

The moment he finally accepted that part of himself, he simultaneously let go of the part of him that had been unable to save anybody, not even himself. The part of him that was directly responsible for why he had to go through all that pain and suffering. The part of him that had lived most of his life being directed by the rule: "it is better to be hurt yourself than to hurt others".

Or, to be more specific, his human side.

At that moment, he refused to allow anything to stand in his way. He would even sacrifice his own humanity if needed, and it just so happened that the only thing that was holding him back from being strong was indeed his humanity. So, he got rid of it. Threw it off to the side like a piece of trash, before fully embracing his ghoul side and the undoubtedly bloody road ahead that came with it.

Without having to deal with those limitations, he was finally able to take full advantage of the superior speed and strength that came with being a half-ghoul. Making it so that, for the first time in his life, he could no longer be considered to be just a crybaby who endangered everyone around him.

After that, people considered him to be strong. Strong enough to kill anyone who dare cross him or anyone precious to him. That effort eventually garnered him so much fear from the doves that they rated him a S-rate ghoul. Definitely not a rank they just handed out willy nilly. No, it was something that was given to only the most dangerous ghouls.

One might think that with all of that respect and fear that had been directed towards him, that he'd be content with the platform he built up and focus on protecting his loved ones and yet, you'd be terribly wrong. Because, despite all of that, he still wanted to grow stronger. Strong enough to not just protect those he cared for, but to eradicate anyone and anything that stopped him from doing so.

To help accelerate that process, he took up the suggestion of the man who tortured him and began eating other ghouls. Because apparently, consuming another ghoul would allow the consumer to absorb the RC cells of the one being eaten, and with a high enough concentration of RC cells, a ghoul would be able reach a form very few of their kind ever reached.

These select ghouls were called "kakuja" by the doves.

They were ghouls whose RC cells had mutated so much that it caused their kagune to change alongside them. This new kagune gave its wielder immense amounts of raw speed and strength, but while the mutated kagune benefited its user on a physical level, another one of its more notable aspects was the toll it took on the wielder mentally.

The kakuja often times made the wielder lose absolute control of themselves when they used it and, more often than not, made the ghoul certifiably insane. There were some whispers going around the wards of ghouls who have been able to maintain control of their kakuja in the past, but unfortunately those cases seemed to be usually uncommon.

And as it turned out, he was not one of those lucky few.

The first time he drew out his kakuja, he lost so much control of himself that he actually attacked Banjou in his craze, nearly killing him with an arm through the stomach.

The second time got him to where he was right now...

In some unknown location down beneath the streets of the twentieth ward. Blood pouring profusely out of his left eye, which had been stabbed clean through just a few moments ago.

The perpetrator of said act of violence was standing over him. The weapon that he had used to take said eye in hand, holding it just a few centimeters above his one remaining good one.

It would've been quite the terrifying sight, if not for the fact he wasn't scared at all. Something he greatly attributed to the fact that he wasn't where he was supposed to be.

As of that moment, he should've been on the ground, waiting for his opponent to plunge the weapon through his head and ending his life as he knew it, but he wasn't.

No, now he was standing directly in the middle of his childhood home, staring at the figure of his mother hunched over the dining room table, clearly taking a short rest from all of the work she had been forcing onto herself.

If he remembered correctly, the exact same thing happened to him when he had been tortured by Yamori.

At the time, he didn't know how to explain it, but after having some time to think, he finally realized that it was his own mind attempting to block out the pain he was feeling. Doing so by making his innermost thoughts seem like they were reality.

Back to his days in that chair, there was no Rize trying to convince him to accept the fact that he was a ghoul. She was simply the manifestation of his repressed ghoul instincts trying to break through to the surface. The only reason she even started appearing was because his mind was slowly breaking under the pressure being put on him.

This time, the manifestation that was facing him was the childhood version of himself, which he assumed to be there to embody the humanity that he threw away so he could become stronger. He had to admit, the boy did a pretty good job of it, though it was sad to have such an epiphany just when he was about to die. Then again, wasn't he the one who said that if his life was ever a story, it would've been classified as a tragedy?

A bitter smile grew on his lips when he saw the tip of his opponent's weapon start to grow in size, which he assumed to because it was starting to approach his eye.

He didn't know what would happen once this final blow was dealt, and truth be told, he really couldn't bring himself to care anymore.

Whatever happened after this series of moments happened, and he would be absolutely powerless to stop it.

Though, he couldn't deny that a very small part of him wished for a miracle to happen in his tragic life, but then again... what were the odds of that happening?

After all, it was called a miracle for a reason.

...

"Hey guys, I think he's coming to!"

Was that a voice?

No… it couldn't be!

He was supposed to be dead!

So how was it possible that he could be hearing voices?

Another hallucination maybe? No, it definitely couldn't have been. Something he greatly attributed to the fact that he didn't recognize that voice at all.

That voice was foreign to him in almost every aspect.

Three things about the voice stuck out to him: the first being that it belonged to a female; the second being that whoever it was held no ill intent towards him, actually it sounded quite concerned; the third and final thing being that it sounded as if it belonged to someone who hadn't quite reached her adult years yet.

He could tell thanks to his experience living with Hi- Wait, why did that voice sound so concerned about him?

From what he could tell by voice alone, he didn't know who she was nor did she know him, so why did she sound so concerned about him?

Was she one of those people who helped anyone in danger just because they thought it was the right thing to do?

If so, she should probably stop thinking that way.

He knew better than anyone that state of mind was nothing more than a weakness. A weakness that most people and ghouls alike would exploit given the chance.

She was lucky that he wasn't like most ghouls, however, or she would've been food by now, though something about the whole situation bugged him.

Why was she acting so calmly?

If he remembered things correctly, and he probably did as this was literally a few moments ago, he should have two gaping holes where his eyes should've been. Definitely not the kind of injury someone that young should be so calm about.

There was concern in her voice, yes, but not the kind that one would show for someone with such a grisly injury. From the way she spoke, it sounded like she had simply found him lying on the ground unconscious, and not mutilated beyond all belief.

If that was the case and he wasn't injured to the extent he believed, he knew that he must have regenerated his missing parts at some point, but that was something else that bothered him about the whole situation.

To have regenerated from such a devastating injury, he would've needed some form of subsistence to fuel his regeneration, and to have gotten subsistence he would have needed to hunt.

That, of course, brought up the question of how much time passed since Arima dropped that quinque of his through his skull.

He estimated that the window he had to get the food he needed to regenerate was less than a few minutes. Mainly because people who've been impaled in their heads rarely lived past a few seconds.

It was clear to him that, like a lot of things, the same thing didn't necessarily apply to ghouls.

Before getting hit with that finishing blow, he took a spear through the head and continued to fight for several minutes afterwards. A fact that the artificial half-ghoul attributed that to the fact he only got impaled in one side of his head.

Having once read in a medical textbook that a human could live through getting impaled through the brain if damage was limited to one side of it, and since ghouls were built naturally tougher than humans, it only made sense that he would be able to move around after something like that. Taking that amount of damage to both hemispheres was another story entirely.

He didn't know much about ghoul anatomy, but if they were anything like their human counterparts, he should've been dead the moment Arima's quinque pierced his right eye.

But he wasn't dead, so what exactly happened?

Dammit, this was getting him nowhere! What was he even doing trying to answer questions he couldn't possibly know the answers to. Why was he acting like he could find the answers to any of them by simply mulling through possibilities through in his head?

That girl probably knew something.

The people she called over probably knew something.

So he opened his eyes and just then did he become acutely of how heavy his eyelids felt, but no matter, he forced them open and the first thing he saw was… the color red.

...

Kaneki didn't know what he expected when he first saw that sliver of red through his half-open eyes, but he certainly didn't expect to see the young face of a teenage girl staring down at him with a curious pair of gray eyes. Eyes that shared the same color as his own, but still somehow managed to seem brighter in comparison. So much so, that he actually found that it'd probably be much more accurate to call the shade of her eyes a shade of silver rather than gray.

She blinked at him with those lively, metallic-colored eyes and he blinked back with his own dull, lifeless ones.

"Hi there," she said to him, finally breaking the silence that had grown between them. Her tone was rather awkward sounding as she raised one of her hands in greeting. An act that vaguely reminded the young man turned half ghoul of a younger version of himself.

"Um… hi," that was the only thing he could manage to say back as he was still completely dumbfounded by what was going on, which ended up causing another impromptu staring contest to go on between them.

The two remained like this for several seconds before the girl once more broke the silence that had grown between them, "You know there are more comfortable places to sleep than on the ground, right?"

The artificial ghoul's eyes widened when he heard those words, instantly becoming aware of his current surroundings. External sounds and smells rushing into the forefront of his mind like they were the water from a destroyed dam.

Everything around him was, for lack of a better word, different.

The cold concrete ground that he was laying on just before he had blacked out was gone, replaced by what felt like a carpet of soft grass. The air that was once filled with the putrid stench of human excrement and freshly-slain corpses was now offset by fresh, clean air. The almost torturous silence that surrounded his fight with Arima had been filled by the pleasant sounds of birds chirping somewhere off in the distance.

Truly, this was the last place the young half-ghoul expected to find himself when he pried his weary eyes open.

Everything around him felt so serene, so peaceful. Definitely a departure from the tense atmosphere that seemed to follow him around everywhere.

It was a pleasant change to say the least.

Not wanting to take this new found calm for granted, the artificial ghoul took a moment to bask in the serenity around him like a warm blanket on a cold night. Two seconds passing him by before he decided to do something. Already knowing that he wasn't going to be able to scan his current surroundings for any dangers while he was on his back, he forced himself up into a sitting position to do just that and to his surprise, the act took little to no effort to perform whatsoever. Surprising, considering he remembered taking several rather large blows to the midsection in his previous fight.

As he sat himself up, Kaneki noted that he was still wearing the battle suit Tsukiyama had designed for him wear during combat situations, but there was something about his current attire that caught him by surprise. Not by the fact that he was still wearing it, he distinctly remembered putting it on before heading over to help fight the doves attacking Anteiku, but by how clean it was. It was completely devoid of any blood, which he had spilt plenty of during his attempt to save Kaya, Enji, and the manager from their aforementioned attackers.

"So you're alright after all," the girl standing before him stated in what had to be the happiest tone he had heard someone other than Hinami use in months. Doing a little self-congratulatory fist pump as she continued, "Looks like Yang is buying me those cookies after all."

As he listened to her speak, his eyes began the task of scanning the area around him and was almost immediately caught off-guard by the sheer amount of greenery that was surrounding him.

There were rows upon rows of trees and bushes all around him. So many, in fact, that the only thing he could see off in the distance were just more and more trees.

_A forest?'_he asked himself with narrowed eyes. _How the hell did I manage to get all the way out to a forest in the shape I was in?_

The snowy-haired half ghoul subconsciously began to rack his brain, looking for anything that could explain how he ended in a place like this.

_I can't smell any gas in the air, which means that I have to be pretty deep into the forest,_ Kaneki mused to himself after having taken in a series of quick sniffs in through his nostrils. _How could I have…?_

He stopped that train of thought when he realized that he was doing it again. There was no possible way he could know the answers to the questions he was asking himself and yet, he kept on asking himself those kinds of questions like they would suddenly pop into his head.

Obviously, he needed to find someone who could answer the questions he had. Thankfully, there was someone in his general vicinity that fit that description.

Kaneki scanned the black-haired girl standing in front of him from head to toe, taking note of the long red cape that was draped on her shoulders, which he assumed to be the sliver of red he saw when he first opened his eyes. He then took the time to note how his earlier assumption of her age being somewhere in between a child and a full-grown adult seemed to be spot on.

If he had to guess her actual age though, Kaneki would have to guess that she was somewhere between the age of fifteen and sixteen. Maybe a year younger if she had gone puberty earlier than most females.

Black hair with red tips. Silver eyes. Pale as snow. Admittedly cute. That was everything that made up the basics of rather unique-looking girl before him.

One may ask him what about her appearance made her unique?

Well, her choice of clothing was a black blouse that had red corset-like lacing on her stomach area; a skirt of the same color that's red trimmings only reached her mid-thigh; and black stockings that went all the way down her legs to a pair of red and black boots. Truth be told, she kind of reminded him of the time he had went to Akihabara with Hide. He had seen a lot of girls dressing in a similar way during his time there.

_I think it was called gothic lolita-style dress,'_he mused to himself offhandedly.

So she was pretty unique-looking in his eyes, but then again, he must have looked pretty unique to her too considering that he was still wearing a skin-tight, black battle suit with only a high-collared shirt and a pair of baggy shorts of the same color to conceal his more private areas.

"Um… is there something on my face or something?" the girl asked him suddenly, forcing him out of his thoughts with a rapid series of blinks.

The artificially-made half ghoul let out a sheepish chuckle at the girl's discomfort, finding the irony in the situation to be quite amusing. He had always been the one to become unnerved by things like getting stared at for too long, so he never expected to be able to do the same to someone else without trying.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to stare," he replied, his tone as sheepish as his prior chuckle as he began to scratch the back of his head.

The girl's expression immediately brightened as she waved off his worries with a chuckle similar to his, "It's alright, I guess you're still a little disoriented. I know I'd be if I woke up in the middle of the Emerald Forest with someone I didn't know standing over me."

_The Emerald Forest?'_he repeated the name to himself mentally, gray eyes narrowing slightly at the mention of the foreign name.

Kaneki wasn't - and had never been - the most well-versed at geography, but he knew enough to know that there wasn't a forest by that name anywhere near Tokyo. A detail that told him that someone physically picked him up and removed him from those sewers. There was simply no way he could've gotten here on his own fruition, even if he had found someone to give him the energy he needed to start regenerating, as he would never have been able to make it out of such a densely populated area without drawing attention of some kind.

That, of course, meant either one of two things happened to the snowy-haired ghoul after he blacked out: either someone retrieved his body from the sewer, fed him with enough human meat for him to recover completely and dragged him all the way out to this forest for some reason; or he was dead and the girl in front of him was some sort of grim reaper, assigned with taking him to some form of higher existence.

Both explanations seemed rather implausible to him. The first, because that explanation sounded convoluted as all hell, and that wasn't even adding in the fact he still probably would've died from his injuries long before the person responsible managed to get him out of those sewers.

The second had a lot of flaws to it too, many of them rather obvious ones, but the most prevalent one to him being the fact the girl that was supposed to be his reaper certainly didn't act like one. She acted just like how a normal fifteen year old girl who had just found someone lying unconscious in the middle of a forest would, and that was it. He also didn't see why it was necessary to have someone guide the souls of the dead somewhere, especially when they could've been forced to go from the beginning, but that was beyond the point. Still though, he might have not the biggest believer in things like the afterlife, but he was pretty sure it would have a much more efficient system of handling things likes this. Considering the amount of people that died in the world every single day, he would've thought that was a given, but again, that was beyond the point.

So after looking at both of those options, and how improbable they were, Kaneki finally decided upon a course of action: he was going to ask the girl if she could guide him out of this forest and see what happened from there.

But before he could even begin putting his plan into motion, he was cut off by a voice that erupted from the treeline surrounding the two of them, "Hey lil' sis, what were you trying to say earlier? We didn't quite catch it."

The moment immediately after those words were spoken, someone emerged from the bushes and drew both pairs of the two teens' gray eyes immediately. When Kaneki's eyes fell upon the newcomer over, he decided to use the same approach he used to describe the red-clad girl in front of him to describe the newcomer. Short and sweet, which ironically enough, weren't words he would use to describe her.

Female. Long, wavy blonde hair that reached all the way down to her lower back. Light violet eyes. Pale, but not overly so. Pretty. Maybe two years older than the girl in red. Slight resemblance to the latter in terms of facial structure?

Those were the things about the girl that really stuck out to him on first sight. Other than her apparel of course, which compared to the girl with the long red cape draped on her shoulders, was relatively normal despite how… revealing they were. Tan vest with a gold piping over a low-crop yellow shirt, brown belt with an attached tan skirt over a pair of black shorts, and upper-calf high brown boots with heels.

As Kaneki registered the details of her general appearance in his head, he took note of how she called the red-clad girl her little sister.

_Step-sisters maybe?'_the artificial asked himself mentally, _Or maybe a familial-like relationship, like the one me and Hinami have?_

Before he could question the topic any further, another figure emerged from the same treeline and drew him out of his thoughts. Just like what he did with the other two girls, the artificially-made half ghoul ran his eyes over the newcomer and took note of anything that stuck out to him.

Also female. Also pale. Also pretty. Also seemed two years older than the girl in red. Hell, the only thing that he could say about her that wasn't essentially rehashing what he said about the other two was that she had long, straight white hair tied up into a side-ponytail. And just like the two girls who came before her, her choice of clothing made her stand out quite a bit.

Light blue bolero jacket with a red inside, a thigh-length dress of the same color that turned white near her bust, and a pair of blue boots that too turned white as they went up.

"Maybe we would've heard her if you had left that boarbatusk alone like I told you to," the white and blue clad girl retorted, arms crossed and expression locked into a scowl to further emphasize her disapproval.

_Boarbatusk? _Kaneki repeated mentally as he stared at the two newcomers.

"Oh come on, how was I supposed to know that tiny little thing's mother was so close by?" the yellow-haired girl countered in a fashion that made it seem like she was waiting for the other girl to say that, kind of like a child who did something bad and was waiting for their parents to say something about it.

"You have got to be kidding me!" the white-haired girl slapped herself in the forehead in frustration. "You and I both know that wildly charging at an enemy like that without properly surveying the area is a stupid idea!"

A pale hand held directly out in front of his face drew his attention off the two bickering girls. Following it to its owner, Kaneki discovered that it belonged to the girl with red cape who had found him.

"Don't worry about those two, they can get really into it sometimes," she said to him in an apologetic tone. Small sheepish smile crossing her lips as she continued, "My name's Ruby by the way, Ruby Rose."

_Ruby Rose… Hm, that doesn't sound like a Japanese name... _the artificial ghoul thought as he stared at the hand offered to him. _A foreigner maybe, or maybe I'm the foreigner here?_

Pushing the question to the back of his mind, he took the hand offered to him and allowed the red-clad girl, apparently named Ruby, to pull him up to his feet. Doing so with little to no trouble, from the looks of it. Then again, it wasn't like he weighed too much to begin with. Actually, the last time he checked he had only weighed 58 kg, which would probably classify him as slightly underweight for people his age.

"Kaneki," the artificial ghoul told her once he was back on his own two feet again. "Ken Kaneki, but most people tend to just call me by my last name."

"Nice to meet you Kaneki," Ruby replied with a cheerful smile, nodding her head once in a way that he couldn't describe as anything other than cute. Mainly because it reminded him a lot of Hinami. "So if you don't mind me asking, why were you lying out in the middle of the forest?"

He flashed her an awkward smile, subconsciously scratching his left cheek and averting his eyes as he answered the girl's question, "Truth be told, I really have no clue how I got out here. I just kind of woke up here."

It wasn't much of an answer, but it wasn't a lie. He just wasn't telling her everything.

"Well that's certainly worrying," said another unfamiliar voice from directly behind him.

Instincts immediately flaring up at the sound of voice, he turned towards the direction the voice came from on a dime and immediately entered a fighting stance, ready to fight back anything that might have wanted to kill him. The moment his eyes fell upon the owner of the voice, he immediately relaxed as the owner of the voice was just another teenage girl that had been sitting on a rock reading a book behind him. How he hadn't noticed her presence earlier was completely beyond him, but he already had way too many questions on his mind at the moment and he didn't want to add onto the pile, so he decided to not question it any further.

For the sake of originality, Kaneki decided to describe the girl in his head with a slightly different approach. Like the other three girls surrounding him, she had rather pale skin. Her black hair was long and wavy, and her eyes were a deep amber. The entirety of her clothing consisted of a black-buttoned-up vest with coattails, a sleeveless white undershirt, a pair of white shorts, and a pair of black stockings that started up at her hips and ended at a pair of ankle-high black heels.

The snowy-haired half ghoul also took note of the large, black bow that adorned her head.

_Cute,'_he thought referring to the bow, blinking owlishly at the aforementioned article of clothing as he added, _almost makes her look like a cat._

"You dropped something by the way," the black-haired girl told him, not even bothering to look up from her book as she spoke.

Glancing down at his feet, the white-haired ghoul's eyes widened at the sight of something that definitely shouldn't have been there. It was his mask... The mask he clearly remembered ripping off during his fight with Amon.

"How the hell…?" Kaneki muttered under his breath before he knelt down to retrieve the previously discarded item.

He stared at the oh so familiar piece of leather with a toothy grin for a few seconds, feeling its familiar surface as if to make sure it was really there, before being finally broken out of his stupor by the sound of Ruby asking him, "Is there something wrong?"

The artificial ghoul glanced up at the red-clad girl from over his shoulder, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before shaking his head and replying, "No, it's nothing." He stuffed the mask into his shirt and stood from his kneeling position. "Just reminded me of something I'd rather forget," Kaneki added solemnly as he placed his right thumb over his index finger and pressed down on it, causing a loud crack to split through the air like it was a hot knife through butter. He then looked up and glanced over at the girls surrounding him, asking, "So, do any of you know how to get out of this forest?"

* * *

"Hey Kaneki," Ruby called out to him suddenly, breaking him out of the almost four minute-long stint of silence he had went into. One that he admittedly needed after he was properly briefed on what the four teenage girls were doing in the forest.

Apparently, they were sent to this forest to investigate a recent disturbance in the area and found him instead, opting to contact their superior, who they called Ozpin, that he would need to be evacuated before they could go on with the mission.

As they explained it to him, Kaneki noticed that their wording was really strange. They used the word 'headmaster' in a way that would be used to talk about a school official, not a superior officer. Polite and respectful with a hint of familiarity, but not overly so in either of those categories.

_Why would a school send students out to investigate something like this? _He found himself asking that question the moment they finished explaining. He hadn't been back to one of his college classes in quite awhile, but he didn't remember there being a class that allowed you to perform tasks a security guard would normally perform. And something else about the situation that bothered him greatly, _What self-respecting headmaster of a school would willingly send their own students out into the forest without supervision? To investigate a disturbance they already knew could've been dangerous, no less?_

That was pretty much as far as he got before Ruby cut off his track of mind.

_I'm clearly somewhere far away from Tokyo and since these four my only way out of this forest, I'm going to have to be polite,_ Kaneki mused to himself before opening his mouth to respond.

"What is it?" the snowy-haired half ghoul asked, glancing over at the youngest one of the group from the corner of his eyes.

"Do you happen to have a weapon with you?" she asked, her tone harboring a child-like innocence that betrayed the nature of the question. He would've narrowed his eyes to reflect his suspicion if it hadn't reminded him a bit of Hinami. "It's really dangerous out here and you know, if something happens…"

"You want to know that I'm capable of defending myself," Kaneki finished for her, a small smile threatening to creep onto his face at the concern the red-clad girl was showing for him, which, again, reminded him of the last remaining Fueguchi.

"Um, yeah!" Ruby exclaimed suddenly, pointing one of her index fingers towards the sky as if she just realized something. "That's totally the reason why I asked!"

For some reason, the artificial half ghoul wasn't quite convinced that was the only reason why she wanted to know if he had a weapon on him, but he decided against calling her out on it as he didn't sense any malicious intent behind the girl's words. What he did sense, however, was more along the lines of a mischievous nature. The kind one would see within a child who just thought up what they assumed to be 'the best excuse ever'.

"Then no, I don't have any weapons on me," Kaneki replied bluntly, something that he immediately regretted when he saw the red-clad girl's expression become crestfallen.

He raised an eyebrow at the girl's sudden change in expression, confused as to why something that simple would elicit such a response from the girl.

"Don't worry about her short-stuff, she's just really into weapons," said the blonde-girl from earlier, popping into the conversation so naturally, it was almost as if she was fully expecting have to do so at some point. "Like so much that I sometimes worry if she'll ever manage to get a boyfriend."

The half ghoul with hair as white as snow blinked at said girl, brows furrowing as he repeated the impromptu nickname she had given him, "Short-stuff?"

"Well, since I don't really know your name, I needed to call you something so…" the blonde-haired girl trailed off while rotating her open palm in a circle. A sign he took as her expecting him to be able piece two and two together.

Now that he had a closer look at her, he found that she was indeed taller than him. She didn't make him look like a dwarf in comparison, but she was definitely taller than him by at least ten centimeters.

"Ah, I see," he replied as he subconsciously started to scratch the back of his head in embarrassment. Not wanting to be called such a demeaning nickname, he decided that it would be best to properly introduce himself before it firmly latched itself to the girl's mind. "My name is Kaneki, by the way."

"Well then, nice to meet you, Kaneki," the girl started, shooting him a brilliant smirk as she suddenly dashed over to Ruby's side. "The name's Yang, and I think you already know my little sister, Ruby."

She wrapped one of her pale arms around the red-clad girl in question as she said this, causing her to let out a cute yelp in surprise.

_She called Ruby her sister again,_ he noted, his curiosity about the two relationship peaking as he watched the two interact with one another. _So are they actually sisters or-_

His curiosity must have been showing on his face, because his train of thought was cut off suddenly by the voice of the dark-haired girl with the bow, who apparently had the answer, "They're half-sisters."

The snowy-haired ghoul glanced over his shoulder at the girl, who was still reading the same book from earlier, and mouthed the word 'oh' at her, before returning his attention back to the two half-sisters standing in front of him. He couldn't help but smile at the sight he saw.

Yang still had her arm wrapped around Ruby's waist. The owner of which was fighting desperately free herself from her step-sister's iron grip, even resorting to flailing her legs about to gain some separation.

"Let. Me. Go!" Ruby yelled as she continued to struggle.

"Nope!" Yang yelled back instantly. "Not a chance!"

Suddenly, the girl with the same hair color as his, who was standing next to the two the entire time let out a groan and asked, "Could you two save the fooling around for, I don't know, after we get out of the forest infested with Grimm?"

_Grimm?_ Kaneki repeated inwardly. He could tell from her tone that she wasn't necessarily afraid of whatever she was referring to, but it was clear that she would rather not deal with whatever it was at all. From the way the two half-sisters reacted to the statement, which was an immediate ceasing of what the white-haired girl referred to as 'fooling around', he could infer that whatever the term 'Grimm' was referred to wasn't meant to be taken lightly.

"As much as I hate to admit it, Weiss is right, we have to get going before nightfall comes," the girl with the bow interjected, who finally looked up from her book and pointed up towards the sky.

_So the girl with the white hair is named Weiss, huh?_ Kaneki thought as he glanced upwards and found that the sun was getting really close to the horizon. _Sounds like German, _he noted whilst thinking back to some of his conversations with Tsukiyama, who would constantly interject such phrases into his everyday speech. _Just where in the world am I?_

"Alright, what are we waiting for then?" Ruby asked as she prepared herself to take off for the treeline, but was stopped in her tracks when Yang grabbed her by the hood on her cape, which caused the red-clad girl to fall back comically and onto her back with a loud thud. "Hey, what was that for?"

Instead of giving an answer, Yang simply pointed her thumb over at him, which made him blink owlishly. The red-clad girl mouthed an 'oh' before picking herself up off the ground and walked over to him.

"Do you think can keep up with us?" she asked him.

Kaneki could barely stop himself from smiling at the question.

* * *

The entirety of team RWBY could hardly believe what they were seeing. When Kaneki said that he could keep up with them, none of the girls expected him to actually be able to do so without putting up a good deal of effort. Something they all pretty much assumed about the young man due to his rather scrawny-looking exterior.

Instead, three of the four girls were treated to the sight of the black-clad young man running side-by-side with Ruby, who was easily one of the fastest students in Beacon, with what seemed like very little effort on his part.

"Dang, when you said you could keep up, I didn't expect this!" Ruby exclaimed as they ran, mentally making a mental note to ask him to race once they got back to Beacon.

Instead of bragging, which a good portion of team RWBY fully expected him to do, he simply gave a curt nod in response and continued running.

_So he isn't going to brag about being almost as fast as Ruby? _Weiss thought to herself as she ran, _He's definitely a bigger person than I am._

Weiss, truthfully, didn't know what to make of the tag-along with the same color hair as her. He spoke to them with a politeness that was uncommon for young men his age, but politeness could easily be faked and she should know, she's been doing it for years now. So, she couldn't say she trusted him just yet, but if that politeness was in fact genuine, it wouldn't surprise her if they got along just fine in the future.

"How much longer until we reach this clearing you talked about?" Kaneki asked while ducking under a low-hanging branch, reaching up and snapping it so it wouldn't hit the girls trailing behind him.

"Not much longer, we should be coming up on it soon," the girl with the bow was the one to answer him. "Just be on the lookout for a clearing filled with stone ruins."

"Thanks…" the snowy-haired young man began to say before realizing he didn't really know her name. "I'm sorry I don't think I caught your name."

"Blake, my name is Blake," she told him curtly.

Kaneki glanced back at the girl with the bow and gave her a nod of acknowledgement in response, but not a second later, his attention was drawn off of her and onto whatever he had just snagged his foot in.

_Dammit, should have been paying attention,_ the artificial half ghoul thought to himself calmly as he began to fall face first towards the ground.

Standing directly behind him, Blake watched as the black-clad young man fell forward and she prepared herself to jump over his body once he hit the ground, but instead of falling face first into the ground like she expected he would, he did something rather surprising. Kaneki, as he fell, planted his hand into the ground and pushed, resulting in a flip that she could only describe with one word: graceful. He didn't even slow down that noticeably when his feet landed back onto the ground, he just continued to run like nothing happened in the first place.

The faunus in hiding couldn't help but be impressed by how routine the action seemed to the young man, it was almost as if he planned for it to happen, though that also only made her wonder what else he was hiding under that stoic expression he displayed.

"Hey, I think I see a clearing up ahead!" Ruby informed everyone, even though they could all see the clearing she was referring to.

When he emerged from the depths of the brush, Kaneki slowed to a stop and found himself standing in front of stone ruins, probably the one Blake had told him about earlier.

The snowy-haired ghoul took note of how different these ruins looked compared to the architecture of the ancient stone structures that he had seen in books about Japanese history. These ruins in particular reminded him of pictures of ancient Greece that he had seen in a book he read when he was younger.

_Am I even in Japan anymore?_ Kaneki asked himself mentally, a familiar feeling of dread welling up inside him as he stared at the ruins in front of him, his mouth hanging open slightly, _Dammit… what the hell happened to me?_

* * *

"Yo, Kaneki," the sound of Yang's voice called out to the snowy-haired half ghoul, breaking him out of the reverie he had accidentally fallen into. "There something wrong?" The blonde asked, tone concerned beyond belief. "You've been staring at those ruins for a full minute now."

"No," he replied with a slight shake of his head, clenching his fists so tightly that they started to bleed. He did his best to not let the dread he was feeling leak into his voice as he spoke, "Everything's fine." The answer was a weak one that he doubted would fool anyone, but uttered it anyways. "I'm just having a hard time trying to wrap my head around the situation, is all."

It didn't take a lot for him to figure out Yang didn't buy the answer, but another voice - one that was completely unfamiliar to the half ghoul - stopped her dead in her proverbial tracks.

"There you four are," a voice that was much more masculine-sounding came from somewhere behind him, "and I'm guessing that you're the young man they found unconscious in the forest."

The black-clad young man in question glanced over his shoulder towards where the voice came from and found that two people, one being a middle-aged man with silver hair and the other was a similarly-aged woman with blonde hair, had decided to join their little group of four standing in the clearing.

The two were staring at him with observant eyes, seemingly strengthened by years of wisdom. Studying him like he was a stray dog they just found on the street.

_They're probably looking to see if I'm going to be dangerous or not, _the artificial half ghoul speculated, _but why do I feel like there's something more to it than just that?_

"Don't you worry your sweet little head about them, short-stuff," Yang told him while roughly placing her hand onto his shoulder, an act that forced him out of his thoughts almost immediately. "They're with us."

To say Kaneki the sudden contact surprised him would've been a major understatement, she was lucky that she had spoken up before she did so because otherwise, he would've attacked on instinct alone.

"Really, Ms. Xiao Long?" the middle-aged woman asked the girl, she shook her head disbelievingly while holding the bridge of her nose between two dainty fingers. "You've just met the boy less than an hour ago and you're already giving him a pet name?"

The snowy-haired half ghoul blinked at the woman's statement at first, his mind taking a few moments to fully comprehend what the woman had implied, and simply let out an awkward chuckle in response when he finally did.

He fought hard to stop the blush that was threatening to creep onto his cheeks, but unbeknownst to him, a small tinge of red did manage to sneak its way onto his features as he replied, "I-it's nothing like that." His attempt at reassuring her came out way too flustered for his liking as well, "She just gave me that nickname because she didn't know what my real name was."

"About that," the older man with the silver-hair spoke up suddenly. "Your name is Kaneki, am I correct?"

The half ghoul in question gave a nod before asking, "And who might you two be?"

"Ah, my apologies, we completely forgot to introduce ourselves," the silver-haired man began politely, but with very little emotion to it, "I am Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy."

"And my name is Glynda Goodwitch," the older woman with blonde hair added once Ozpin finished. "I'm in charge of teaching the students of Beacon how to fight effectively against the creatures of Grimm."

Both of their introductions troubled Kaneki greatly. When he had first heard Weiss talk about the Grimm, he thought it was a problem that was confined to this forest and to this forest only, but to have an entire section of a school's curriculum dedicated to learning how to fight them meant one thing. That the situation with the Grimm was serious and widespread enough for people to take action against them. It also probably meant that they had been a problem for quite sometime.

An idea suddenly popped into his head then.

_Why are they teaching teenagers how to fight something that's obviously dangerous?_ Kaneki asked himself.

To him, that meant that this Beacon Academy's entire purpose was teaching teenagers how to fight things like the Grimm, because he highly doubted that any self-respecting high school had an optional class for that sort of thing.

The levels of dread inside the artificial ghoul rose to exponential levels as he realized what that implicated. He definitely wasn't in Japan and he was beginning to doubt that he was even in the same world anymore.

His reasoning?

First off, the six around him spoke of the Grimm like they were this place's equivalent to ghouls, which basically meant that they spoke about the subject calmly even though they knew that they were obviously dangerous. It wasn't just that though.

From the way the spoke, they sounded like they were expecting him to know about the Grimm, which meant that having knowledge about the subject was commonplace here, wherever he was. So why did he have absolutely no knowledge about the subject then?

Kaneki knew that he didn't know about everything under the sun, but he knew how the world worked. If something was even remotely dangerous to humans, the media would jump on it eventually. That, or the government covered up, but based on how liberally the six around him spoke of the subject, that clearly wasn't the case.

Nothing, and he meant absolutely nothing, could've proven his point of more than the celestial object that was now hung just a little over the treeline of the Emerald Forest.

It was the moon as he remembered it, but with a giant gash on its side causing it to remain its crescent form as its broken parts hung loosely next to it.

_What the hell happened to me?_ Kaneki asked himself as he stared wide-eyed at the damaged moon before him. _What happened to me what happened to me what happened to me what happened to me WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?!_

* * *

"Kaneki!" the sound of Ruby's voice drew the snowy-haired half ghoul out of his thoughts almost immediately. He glanced over at the red-clad girl, who was currently standing beside him with a worried look plastered over her face, and asked her in a tone that held zero emotion in it, "Something the matter?"

"'Something the matter'?" he heard Weiss yell from somewhere behind him. "You've been staring at the moon for literally three straight minutes!"

Ozpin, who had been quietly watching this "Kaneki" for the entirety of that three minutes, noticed the change in the young man's demeanor almost immediately. His once wide-eyed face suddenly became completely void of emotion in less than a second's notice.

Ozpin recognized the look instantly and was immediately struck with a wave of pity for the young man. He had only seen that look on the faces on the most veteran of hunters, which of course made the headmaster question what he had went through in his past.

"Can I ask all of you a question?" Kaneki spoke up suddenly, voice still harboring no emotion. "Do any of you know how far away we are from Tokyo?"

"Toe-key-yo?" Ruby repeated, saying the syllables to indicate that she had no idea as to what he was talking about.

"That's what I thought," the snowy-haired young man stated, head now angled down towards the ground, which caused his snow-white hair to cover his eyes completely.

That was the moment all four members of team RWBY dawned expressions of concern, all of them wondering what had happened to cause such a sudden shift in demeanor. But before any of them could ask him what was wrong, a series of loud howls erupted from the treeline.

The reaction from the hunters-in-training was instantaneous. In a matter of moments, each of the four teenage girls equipped their weapons.

Ruby was holding her signature red and black colored, high caliber sniper-scythe that was lovingly dubbed: "Crescent Rose".

Weiss was holding her steel-gray rapier of standard-length that could shoot vials of raw dust at her enemies. A weapon that was named as elegantly as its wielder: "Myrtenaster".

Blake, in contrast to Weiss's rather practical-looking weapon, was wielding something akin to an over-sized cleaver with a gray and pink paint job that was named: "Gambol Shroud".

And last but certainly not least was Yang, who was wielding a pair of yellow dual-ranged shot gauntlets that she called: "Ember Celica".

Almost as if on cue, four hulking half-wolf, half-human beasts emerged from the trees. Their fur was pitch-black and they all had white bone-like protrusions covering their bodies, including their faces that served as a mask to cover everything but their eyes, which shined a bright red.

"Beowolves," Ruby spat as she prepared herself for battle.

This prompted an almost immediate sarcastic response from Weiss, "No, you don't say?"

"Alright so how we doing this?" Yang asked before immediately suggesting, "One wolf each?"

"Sounds good," Ruby answered with an affirmative nod, "So which one…"

The red-clad huntress in training trailed off when she noticed a familiar young man dressed in all black walk past her and directly at the four beowolves.

"Young man, what do you think you're doing?!" Ms. Goodwitch demanded. "Get back here and let us take care of this!"

Kaneki stopped at that order and glanced over his shoulder at the woman, casting her a glare that could've rivaled the beowolves in intensity, and answered with a simple, yet effective, "No."

After uttering that one word answer, he continued advancing towards the beowolves. Striding towards with a nonchalant feel to his step.

All four members of team RWBY opened their mouths to try and get the snowy-haired young man to stop advancing, but they were cut off by Ozpin, who simply told them, "Don't interfere just quite yet, I want to see what he's capable of."

"But Professor Ozpin, he doesn't even have a weapon to defend himself with!" Weiss protested, clearly outraged by the notion of letting an unarmed civilian take on four beowolves by himself.

"Yeah, Weiss is right, how is supposed to beat four beowolves on his own with nothing but his fists?" Yang asked, backing up her teammate with little to no hesitation, though she was still very afraid for the young man's safety.

"At least let us help him so he doesn't get himself killed!" Ruby chimed in, the amount of worry coursing through her veins now reaching amounts that rivaled the amount of blood she had in her system.

Blake could only stare at Kaneki, her gaze holding a mixture of shock and amazement at what the white-haired young man was doing. He was currently staring down a group of four beowolves without a weapon in his hands and he was acting like it was nothing but a walk in the park. Something that she doubted some hunters could do as easily.

"None of you need to worry," Kaneki told them all, voice still completely emotionless as he spoke, "when I told you that I was capable of defending myself, I wasn't lying…" Cracking the middle joint of his index finger, he continued in a much darker voice, "Now then..."

* * *

With that, Kaneki shot towards the four beowolves at a speed that caught everyone watching completely off-guard.

The artificial half ghoul took note of this and immediately jumped on the opportunity. He jumped towards them once he deemed himself close enough and landed a solid right hook on the face of the closest beowolf to him, which caused a loud cracking sound to ring through the air.

The force from his attack being so great that it caused the pitch-black beast to rear back in pain, holding its now cracked bone mask with its giant clawed hands as it did so.

By the time he landed back onto the ground, the three other beowolves had regained their grip on the situation and lunged at him from all sides. Their long claws aimed directly for his head, but unfortunately for the beasts, that was what he was expecting them to do.

In response, Kaneki jumped directly at one of the weaker-looking beowolves, using its face as leverage to launch himself further up into the air to gain some separation from his opponents. Turning his body in mid-air so that he would be facing his enemies, not wanting to have his back to them upon landing.

When he finally did land, he immediately shot towards the beowolves again. Doing so at a much slower speed in an attempt to throw the pseudo-werewolves off, and surprisingly enough, it worked.

They were expecting him to get there sooner than he actually did, which caused them to hold up their arms up to their heads to protect themselves a little before he was actually upon them, leaving their lower bodies completely wide open to him. That was when he decided to go full speed and send a left uppercut right into the stomach of the closest beowolf with enough force put into it to launch the wolf into the air slightly, which was immediately followed up by a spinning hook kick to the jaw that sent the wolf flying towards the treeline.

It didn't take too long after the wolf - the one that he now dubbed beowolf #2 - went flying into the trunk of a nearby tree, which effectively disabled it permanently, for the other three wolves to try attacking him again.

Beowolf #3, the one to his immediate right, and #4, the one to his left, slashed at him with their claws while Beowolf #1, the one with the giant crack in its face standing directly in front of him, attempted to chomp down onto him with what teeth Kaneki hadn't punched out already.

He ducked under the claws of beowolf #3 and backflipped over the claws of beowolf #4. Knowing that the jaws of wolf #1 were fast approaching him, he turned his head towards it and expertly weaved under its jaws.

The artificial half ghoul sharpened his fingers into a point and slammed the tip into #1's stomach, his hand piercing the hide of the beast with very little resistance.

* * *

Back over on the sidelines, everyone under the age of 17 currently had their jaws firmly planted on the floor as they tried to get past the fact that the rather scrawny-looking young man dressed in all black, the same one they found lying in the middle of a forest completely unconscious, was fighting four beowolves at the same time… and winning.

"I gotta admit," Yang began, clearly impressed by how well Kaneki was faring. "Short-stuff packs a wicked punch."

"Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you there," Weiss replied, watching the scene unfold with a look of shock.

* * *

Kaneki pulled his arm from out of the beowolf's midsection, a viscous black liquid now covering his arm up to his elbow. He was just about to fling the substance off of his arm when he noticed a familiar scent radiating from it.

_No, it couldn't be..._ Kaneki thought while staring at his aforementioned arm, completely missing the fact that the being he just jabbed his arm into evaporated like water next to him.

Unfortunately, the artificial half ghoul was never able to try and confirm his idea, because before he could try and do so, he noticed an incoming claw from the corner of his eye. Knowing that he wasn't going to be able to dodge the attack, he simply raised his arms over his head and took the attack, but no claws slashed his skin. Instead, he found himself being raised in the air and thrown towards a nearby tree. He slammed into the trunk of said tree at great speed, causing a loud cracking sound to come from either his bones or the tree he hit snapping.

* * *

"Kaneki!" Ruby exclaimed worriedly, stepping forwards to try and help the snowy-haired young man, but was stopped when she heard him say.

"Don't worry about me," the young man in question told her as he stood back up slowly, a smile creeping onto his face as he felt his RC cells start mending the broken vertebrae in his spinal cord back together. "I've been through a lot worse than that."

* * *

Beowolf #3 and #4 didn't waste anytime in charging at him again, but unlike last time, Kaneki was prepared for the attack and side-stepped the horizontal slash of wolf #4. He then retaliated by grabbing said appendage by the forearm and slamming the palm of his hand into its elbow.

A loud snapping noise came from the arm, which was immediately followed by affected party's literal howls of pain.

The half ghoul didn't waste any time admiring his work, he immediately jumped back and away from wolf #4, just narrowly missing getting hit by #3's incoming claws by a few centimeters.

_They may be strong, but I can predict their actions easily,_ Kaneki thought, smile still gracing his lips. _These things really are just nothing more than wild animals, aren't they?_

The snowy-haired ghoul shot towards his right and circled around the two beowolves. Their beady red eyes followed him like he expected and it was clear that they were waiting for him to attack them again, but he wasn't going to do that just quite yet. He wanted to make sure of something before then.

Knowing that he couldn't be seen doing what he was going to do, he jumped into the nearby trees and licked some of the black liquid on his arm off, doing all of this while running just deep enough into the trees where he could see his enemy but they couldn't see him.

It tasted absolutely disgusting, or more specifically like someone blended the smell of shit and the taste of rotting fish gusts together, but he noticed something off about it immediately. He could actually swallow the liquid without wanting to puke his guts out, and once the liquid crawled down his throat, he felt absolutely invigorated.

_So these things are like ghouls?_ Kaneki's bloodthirsty smile only growing larger by the thought. _They may taste even worse... but at least I have another food source other than humans._

Not wanting to look like he jumped into the woods for absolutely no reason, he broke a low-hanging branch off a tree and chucked it at the two beowolves. They reacted just like he predicted they would.

The two pseudo-werewolves immediately began focusing on the branch, probably thinking that it was a serious attack on his part, completely missing the fact that he had jumped back out of the brush and was now running towards them.

As the wolves turned their bodies to evade the incoming branch, Kaneki jumped up towards beowolf #3 and planted his right foot into its shoulder, before putting all of his strength into a kick to the back of the wolf's head with his other foot. The resulting kick ending with the wolf's head flying clean off of its shoulders.

Unlike last time, the rinkaku ghoul took note of what happened to the beowolf once he killed it, _So they evaporate upon death? That means I'm going to have to eat them when they're alive to actually to be able to consume them._

* * *

Back with the group of six watching the black-clad young man fight, everyone, and that includes Ms. Goodwitch and Professor Ozpin, were still trying to get over the fact that he literally kicked a beowolf's head off.

"Oh come on! How is that even humanly possible?" Weiss exclaimed in her stupor, despite already knowing that it was in fact not humanly possible for someone to kick a beowolf's head off without dust.

By this time, Ruby had almost managed to stop fully worrying about Kaneki's well-being, but she was finally able to after seeing him decapitate something with a mere kick, which prompted this response from her, "I don't know, but I do know one thing. That. Was. So. Awesome!"

"I have to agree with Ruby," Blake chimed in from out of the blue, nodding her head in agreement. "That was pretty impressive."

"Just impressive?" Yang repeated disbelievingly. "That was- Oh wait." Before saying what she was going to say, the blonde-haired teen walked over her little sister and placed her gloved hands over the fifteen year old's ears. "That was freaking badass!"

With that, Yang removed her hands from her sister's ears, who immediately asked, "Hey! Why'd you have to cover my ears?"

"No reason~" the blonde bombshell answered innocently in a sing song voice that would've failed to convince an infant of her innocence.

"No reason, right…" Ruby trailed off as she returned her attention back onto Kaneki, who was just finishing the last beowolf off.

* * *

Said black-clad young man was now standing over the last of the four beowolves, his face stony as ever as he shoved the bottom of his boot into the wolf's now broken bone mask.

"I know that you probably don't know the answer to this, but do you know what euthanasia is?" Kaneki began emotionlessly, while cracking his index finger once more. "It's the act of putting something down if they're suffering through a pain they won't survive," he continued as he applied more pressure on the Grimm's face, eliciting pained whimpers from the pseudo-animal, "and I'm guessing it's safe to assume that by doing this, I'm making you suffer, right?"

The snowy-haired ghoul put a little more pressure on the beowolf's mask, causing the pseudo-werewolf to let out even more strangled whimpers of pain.

"So, I'll do you a favor and put you down just here and now," he began as a full-blown bloodthirsty smile crept its way onto his lips. "I mean, I wouldn't want to make an animal suffer now, would I?"

With that, he lifted his boot up from the wolf's bone mask and stomped down onto it with all of his might. The mask gave way instantly and his foot went through straight through the beowolf's head, killing it.

The resulting mess would've been a gruesome sight to behold if the body hadn't disintegrated literally a second later, but it wasn't like he could complain too much about that, though he did kind of wish that he could've gotten a second longer to admire his handiwork.

It definitely would've helped to quell the surge of emotions that was currently running through his veins.

He still couldn't quite believe it.

Somehow he had managed to get himself thrown into another world. He didn't want to believe that was the case, but clearly, it was.

How else could he explain the four wolf-like creatures that he had just killed? How else could he explain the fact that none of the first six people he met after awakening had no clue what Tokyo was when it was the capital city of a world power? How else could he explain the fact that a good portion of the moon was fucking destroyed?

Other than this being some sort of weird hallucination that made him feel physical, not mental, physical pain, he had no clue.

Despite that, being in a different world was really the last thing he was concerned about at the moment, he was truthfully more concerned for the fate of his friends.

Kaneki managed to save Irimi and Enji from death momentarily, but if they ran into Arima in the state they were in, and he knew they would considering V14 was the only way out of the 20th ward, they would have no chance of taking down the reaper of the CCG. He didn't know what happened to the manager since he hadn't been able to reach him. He could've been killed or he could've survived, either way Kaneki highly doubted that the man who had been able to boss around two SS-rated ghouls for years would go down without much of a fight.

The snowy-haired half ghoul also couldn't be sure about what would happen to the group he was leaving behind after his reckless actions.

What would happen to Ichimi, Jiro, Sante, and Banjou? They weren't very powerful on their own so what would happen to them after he was gone?

What would happen to Tsukiyama? He was strong, but the way the gourmet acted when he left to save the ghouls at Anteiku worried him.

And then there was Hinami. What would happen to the young ghoul that he considered a younger sister? He didn't hold a single doubt that she would be able to take care of herself, but he had no idea how she would react to yet another person close to her disappearing without a trace.

The more Kaneki thought about it, the harder he clenched his fists. He needed to get back to his world, but how could he when he didn't even know how he got here in the first place?

Just like that, what he needed to do became crystal clear to him.

He needed to get back. He needed to get back. He needed to get back. Heneededtogetback. Heneededtogetback. Heneededtogetba-

"Hey Short-stuff, you okay?" the sound of Yang's voice drew him out of his thoughts.

The snowy-haired ghoul took in a deep breath before turning towards the blonde-haired girl behind him, silently thanking her as he nodded in response to her question. His mind was going into dark places and bad things tended to happen when his mind went to dark places.

The nod didn't seem to convince her of his wellness, probably due to the fact the emotionless expression he was wearing wasn't very reassuring, but she didn't call him out on it. In the end, he was someone they just met in the woods and she must've thought that it wouldn't be appropriate to ask something so personal so early.

The snowy-haired ghoul silently thanked her again as they walked over to the rest of the group, who were waiting for him. Their expressions surprising him momentarily.

After something like that, he expected them to look at him in a different light, but to his surprise there was very little change to their demeanors.

Ruby was still smiling at him sweetly, Weiss still had that impatient scowl on her face, and Blake was still reading that book of hers. Ozpin and Goodwitch were still watching him curiously, but this time with slight smiles on their faces. Even Yang, who noticed the changes in his demeanor earlier, still had that same confident smile spread across her features as he looked at him.

The smiles directed towards him proved infectious as a moment later, the emotionless facade he put up cracked and a thin smile spread across his face.

_How could they remain so positive after what I did to those beowolves?_ That question looped in his mind as he approached them, but a certain blur of red coming towards him at top speed made him stop.

"That. Was. So. Awesome!" that blur of red exclaimed as she bounced up and down in front of him like a puppy who hadn't seen its master in awhile, you know if dogs started carrying around giant metal scythes. "You were like one of those guys I've seen in kung-fu movies! You were all like (A/N: insert generic kung-fu movie noises here)!"

Kaneki couldn't stop himself from letting out a sheepish laugh at Ruby's words, flattered by the comparison. Having seen some of those movies she was talking about, he could thank Hide for that, and immediately knew that she couldn't be anymore wrong though he wasn't going to tell her that quite just yet.

So instead, he decided to give Ruby this response while scratching the back of his head, "I'm not that good."

"Oh come on! You don't need to act all modest, you were freaking awesome against those beowolves!" Ruby countered. "I mean, you beat them all with nothing but your bare hands. Your bare hands! Do you know how many people who could've done that?"

"Not a lot?" he guessed.

"Exactly," the red-clad teenager replied with a proud nod, "so take a little pride in how strong you are, will you?"

'_Take a little pride in how strong you are'..._ Kaneki repeated as images of his fights with Shachi and Arima. _I guess I do forget how strong I am sometimes... _Memories of what happened in V14 replayed themselves in his mind suddenly, _but unfortunately not strong enough._

"Yeah, Ruby's right," Yang interjected whilst slapping him on the shoulder like she did earlier. "After what you did, I'm sure you get a free pass on being humble just this once."

Not knowing how else to respond, the snowy-haired half ghoul simply nodded and flashed an appreciative smile at the girl's statement, though he doubted that he could ever be confident in his power ever since his fight with Shachi. The beating he received that day was a reminder that even though he was considered a strong ghoul - the CCG didn't give out the SS-rating to ghouls for no reason after all - there was always the chance that his enemies might be just a bit stronger than him.

So, that's why he vowed to never get too overconfident in his abilities again, otherwise he might lose the drive to become stronger and in turn, get weaker than he was when he started out. But then again, was power really something he wanted if the result was something like his kakuja?

He really didn't know the answer to that question anymore.

* * *

Away from the group of five teenagers, Ozpin and Goodwitch were conversing quietly about the events that just transpired in front of them.

"What do you think, Mr. Ozpin?" the middle-aged, blonde huntress asked curiously. "He's certainly strong, you'd have to be to punch clean through a beowolf, but…"

"You fear that he's too unstable to have around the other students," Ozpin finished for her.

"So you saw the bloodthirsty grin he had when he was fighting too?"

"It was rather hard to miss, but if he was a danger to us, he definitely would've tried something by now," Ozpin countered, making reference to how friendly he was acting with the group of four teenage girls that he named team RWBY. "At the very least we should give him the benefit of the doubt. If we can convince him to join us, I'm sure he'll be a great asset to have in the war against the creatures of Grimm."

"I guess you're right, but if something happens-" Goodwitch began before Ozpin cut her off.

"If the time comes, I'll take full responsibility," the headmaster reassured his subordinate as he turned his attention back onto the group of teens currently conversing.

Four of which being students of his, and one he genuinely hoped would be one in the future.

* * *

When Ruby and the others brought him back to Beacon Academy, Kaneki didn't expected to be immediately dragged up into the headmaster's office, by none other than the man himself.

So, that's how he found himself sitting in front of said man with a rather large metal desk between them as they made idle small talk. Nothing special too special happened between them, just a brief getting to know each other up until Ozpin asked, "Where did you say you were from again?"

Kaneki anticipated that question being asked for a while now, but he still couldn't decide on how to answer. A part of him wanted to lie and make himself look less suspicious, probably say something along the lines of him not being able to remember his place of origin, but he had his doubts of his plan working.

The man just didn't seem like the type to miss much and Kaneki didn't know how he would respond if he decided to call him out on it, and given his lack of knowledge about wherever he currently was, trying to come up with another believable lie would be rather difficult.

He could try and avoid the question entirely, but there was always the chance that the conversation may lead back to the topic and if he kept sidestepping it for too long, he would eventually be called out on it. No doubt about that.

Then, there was the option of telling the man the truth and giving up the fact that he was from another world, which, of course, seemed like the option to avoid when it first crossed his mind. Now, that he had a chance to think about it, however, he realized that it would probably the be the more beneficial route for him to take.

If he was ever going to be able to get back to his friends and his own world, the artificial half ghoul knew that he was going to need someone else's help eventually. Truth be told, it'd probably be more beneficial to him to get someone in a influential position in society to back him than just pretending from this world. Someone like that could get him out of any sticky situations if it ever boiled down to it.

Flat out telling the man that he was from another world would also help him in the long run. Living in a society meant that one knew the basics of how it worked and he would definitely need time to learn those basics. A fact that might have led to some rather awkward conversations in the future, especially if one were to come up that was so well known that he couldn't just play off as simple ignorance. That would also, in turn, draw some attention his way and he'd rather not deal with anything like that so early in his time here.

So with a route set in his mind, Kaneki took in a deep breath and began to explain to the middle-aged man before him, where exactly he came from.

* * *

"So, what do you guys think's going to happen to Kaneki?" Ruby asked the four other members of team RWBY as they got themselves ready for bed, all of them already in their pajamas.

"Given how crazy today has been, who knows?" Yang gave an exaggerated shrug as she strode over to her bed, letting out a loud yawn as she asked, "How about you, Blake? What do you think's going to happen to short-stuff?"

"Knowing Ozpin, I assume he was offered a chance to become a student here at Beacon," Blake replied as she turned a page in the book she was reading, not giving much of an answer after that.

"Well, I guess that makes sense considering what he did out there..." Weiss interjected as she finished her usual pre-sleep routine, one that was probably more intricate and time consuming than some girls' morning routine, "but for some reason, I doubt that he'd actually agree to come here."

"Huh, why do you say that?" Ruby asked her partner with more than just a hint of curiosity in her voice.

"Well, here at Beacon, the fact is that students usually have to join a team and he just seems like one of those 'lone-wolf' types, don't you think?" Weiss explained, crossing her arms over her chest as she explained. "You know, one of those guys who does everything on their own because they think they're the only ones who can."

"Weiss and I rarely agree on things, but I have to agree with her here," Yang admitted with a small nod of her head. "I've come across a couple of those types and the way he fights reminds me a lot like them in a way."

"Really?" Ruby asked with a tilt of her head, but a sudden series of knocks on their dorm room door stopped any of them from giving an answer.

"I'll get it~!" Yang sing-songed before rushing to answer the door like a child. "Who is it?"

"It's Ozpin," answered a familiar voice came from the other side of the door in all its emotionless glory. "I have something important to discuss with the four of you."

"Oh, then come on in," Yang replied before unlocking the door and opening it for their headmaster, only to met with a sight that gave all four girls a pleasant shock.

As they expected, headmaster Ozpin walked through the door with his signature cane in hand, but he wasn't what surprised them. No, what surprised them was the familiar snowy-haired young man following him, clad in, well… nothing but a pair of black boxers and a white towel that hung loosely off his bare, pale shoulders.

"Ah, I must apologize for Mr. Kaneki's state of undress," Ozpin said after noticing the rather surprised faces on two of the four teens before him. The only outliers being Yang, who was staring at the young man with a lecherous grin on her face, and Blake, who continued to read from the book in her hand, seemingly completely unconcerned by the situation that was unfolding in front of her. "He requested a shower before he coming here and I had a maid go get his clothes washed without having any replacement clothing on hand."

"S-so why didn't you just wait for them to get finished being washed?!" Weiss asked while averting her eyes from the undressed form of Kaneki, a slight blush appearing on her pale features as she did so.

"That's what I suggested initially, but he insisted that it was fine and that he would like to get this out of the way as soon as possible." Their headmaster explained tiredly. "So, naturally I obliged."

"So you just had him walk all the way here from the clock tower, dressed in nothing but his underwear?" Weiss asked in a much steadier tone, but it was clear by how her pale blue eyes were averted off to the side that she was still actively trying not to look at Kaneki.

This gained a nod of affirmation from Ozpin, which prompted the heiress of the Schnee dust company to let out an exasperated sigh.

"Sorry, I guess I really didn't think this through, did I?" Kaneki asked, his lips curling up into a sheepish smile as he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Well, you're not going to hear me complaining," Yang stated while still staring directly at him, now nodding her head slowly as she continued to blatantly admire the young man's rather impressive physique.

"So, Professor Ozpin, what did you need to speak with us about?" Ruby hurriedly asked, attempting to shift the conversation away from her snowy-haired friend's lack of clothing and his perfectly sculpted bo-

_Woah! Where did that come from?_ she asked herself mentally before the sound of her headmaster's voice brought her back to reality.

"Oh yes, as of tomorrow, Mr. Kaneki here will be attending classes here at Beacon and like all students, he will need to have to go through initiation," Ozpin explained, "which means he's going to need somewhere to rest so he has enough energy to fight effectively tomorrow, but due to the rather short notice of his arrival, we don't have a place for him to stay the night and I'm sure you all can piece together the rest."

"So, you're basically saying that you're going to have him stay here with us since he doesn't know anyone else here at Beacon," Blake said dryly, still not looking up from her book as she spoke.

"Exactly," was Ozpin's response, his voice equally as dry.

"Excuse me sir, but did it ever cross your mind that having a half-naked young man sleep in the same room as four teenage girls, could be a tad bit uncomfortable for some of said teenage girls?" Weiss asked Ozpin with a tone that was a mix of outrage and curiosity.

"Yes, but after my talk with Mr. Kaneki here, I thoroughly believe that he's not the type of person to try and do something to a sleeping girl during the middle of the night," Ozpin explained to the heiress. "It's one of the reasons why I'm even letting him sleep in your room in the first place."

Surprisingly, that statement alone was enough for her to let out a sigh of contempt and say, "Fine, he can stay here, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it."

"That's all I ask of you, Ms. Schnee."

"Truth be told, I'd be more worried about what might happen to him during the night, rather than what might happen to us," Blake commented dryly as she turned another page in the book she was reading, making clear reference to the grin Yang was flashing towards the white-haired young man, whose eyebrow was beginning to twitch uncomfortably under said gaze.

Headmaster Ozpin paid no attention to the fidgeting young man next to him and said, "That is all, I hope you all have a good night." The silver-haired man then turned his head torwards the snowy-haired young man. "Especially you, Mr. Kaneki," he stated, "you're going to need it for tomorrow afternoon."

With that, Ozpin turned on a heel and exited the dorm room, leaving the five teenagers completely to their own devices.

Kaneki scanned the dorm room around him and immediately took note of the strange bedding arrangements. Two beds were on the floor as they should be, but the two other beds were placed directly over the ones on the ground, forming a pair of makeshift bunk beds.

"Sorry again about this," Kaneki apologized to all of them once again, or more accurately one of them in particular. "Like I said, I really didn't think this one through."

"Don't worry about it, we all had to stay in the ballroom our first day here at Beacon, boys and girls alike so it's nothing new to us," Ruby reassured him. "Yang and I'll go get the spare blankets, I hope you don't mind sleeping on the floor."

"Or you could share a bed with one of us, my bed has plenty of room, you know~," Yang chimed in causing a slight blush to slowly crawl onto his face.

"N-no the floor is fine," Kaneki reassured her, nearly choking on his words as they came out, eliciting a giggle from both Ruby and Yang as they went to get his makeshift bed ready.

Both finding the sight of the young man who killed a group of four beowolves with his bare hands only hours ago, blushing a small amount of teasing completely and utterly absurd.

Knowing that it might take a while for his bed to be ready, the snowy-haired young man walked over to the second thing in the room that caught his attention during his initial scan of the room.

It was a long wooden bookcase that was about the height of one of the single beds next to it and was filled to the brim with books. Kneeling down so that he was exactly eye level with the top shelf of the bookcase, he began browsing through the titles, looking for anything that seemed interesting.

The black-haired girl who most of the books belonged to immediately took notice of this and asked him, "Looking for a book to read?"

"Um yeah, any suggestions?" he asked while still browsing the titles, immediately taking notice of the fact that he had seen some of the same titles on books from his world.

"It depends on what you like to read," was Blake's response to him.

"I tend to like books that are written in a more descriptive manner and are serious in nature," Kaneki recited in a tone that made it seem like saying it was second-nature to him, as he was saying this his gray eyes suddenly noticed a book that was different from the rest. The rest of the other books had brown, black, or blue covers. This book on the other hand had a cover that was colored a deep crimson.

Curious about what it contained, the snowy-haired teen pulled it out from the shelf and flipped to a random page.

"Then, I would suggest you read-" the black-haired teen began, immediately ceasing all talking when she glanced down and saw him reading out of that book.

_Oh crap, he found my copy of Ninjas of Love,_ Blake thought, screaming at herself mentally for not hiding it better. _Calm down Blake, calm down, he can't possibly know that it's yours. You just have act normal… Act normal._

Kaneki's expression remained steely as he realized what type of book he was currently reading. His usually strong desire to read dying inside of him as he closed the book and placed it back in the bookcase without a word.

With his want to read completely shattered into a million pieces, he decided that it was best to just sit himself down on the floor and let his thoughts wander, so that's exactly what he did. As he sat there with his back to the bookshelf, he let his thoughts wander back to his conversation with Ozpin.

_Act normally, huh?_ he repeated the sole instructions Ozpin had given him on the way to team RWBY's dorm room. _What exactly defines being normal around here, I wonder?_

"Hey Kaneki, you're bed's ready," Ruby told him while gesturing towards a pile of spare blankets and a single pillow that was positioned directly in front of Weiss's bed.

The snowy-haired half ghoul gave her and Yang an appreciative nod before standing up and walking over towards the makeshift bed.

"Remember, if you get too uncomfortable on the floor, my bed is always open," Yang told him in a low, seductive whisper as they passed each other, causing yet another blush to fight its way onto his cheeks, eliciting a giggle from said blonde bombshell.

Kaneki let out an awkward laugh as he hurried to his makeshift bed. It wasn't anything extravagant, but it wasn't like he expected it to be in the first place. He let out a relieved sigh when he slipped himself in between the two blankets and allowed his head fall onto his pillow.

After everything that happened to him in the past couple hours, sleep came easy to him and unfortunately so did the nightmares…

**-Chapter End-**

Speaking of nightmares… This was a nightmare to edit. Like I said, I spent hours combing through it to fix some of the mistakes I missed on the initial edit.

One of the reasons I stopped posting on spacebattles, really. It was goddamn tiring to try and edit two-thousand words every two nights or so. Hours were spent and not a lot was given back to me, so I just had to stop and focus on my current stuff.

So… um, yeah. Go and check out the edit of chapter two.


	2. Chapter 2: And Down Comes Down the Rain

Yo, guys and welcome to that edited version of chapter 2 I promised you all. Um, really nothing more to say…

You guys know the deal by now.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I don't own either series. Really. Stop asking.

**-Chapter 2: And Down Comes the Rain-**

Kaneki once read that if someone were to take in the same chemical constantly, over a long period of time, that they would eventually develop a sort of tolerance to aforementioned chemical. After first reading that, he wondered if the same thing could be applied to other things, but now, he knew that it was entirely possible.

From the moment he escaped Aogiri Tree's clutches, nightmares plagued his mind while he slept. He received them over and over, nonstop, for the past few months. At a point, he had gotten so many that he actually started to develop a sort of tolerance to them. Something that first became apparent to him after the first couple weeks, when he started waking up from said nightmares without immediately sitting up or hyperventilating right after waking.

He still did have reactions to them - it was hard not to - but they were now limited to waking up in a cold sweat and the occasional yelling out of someone's name. He, of course, didn't mind gaining a tolerance to them, but that didn't stop him from realizing how depressing the fact was. For a person to have so many nightmares, that they actually started to become jaded to them... That was the very definition of the word: depressing.

So, that's why he wasn't at all surprised to wake up and find himself covered with a thin layer of sweat.

_Another fucking nightmare..._ Kaneki thought to himself bitterly as he sat up on his makeshift bed. The sheets that had spent the entirety of last night covering him, slipped off of him as he subconsciously cracked his index finger with his thumb. _I wonder if I'll ever stop having them._

The nightmare he just had wasn't particularly frightening, nor was it very unique. It was pretty much the same old, same old: watching bad things happen to the people he cared about, while he had no absolutely no ability to change what was going on in front of him.

"Oh good," he heard a voice coming from his left say to him suddenly, snapping him out of his thoughts, "you're finally awake."

His instincts kicked into gear almost immediately. The snowy-haired half ghoul rolled out of his makeshift bed and onto his feet in one fluid motion, angling his body so that he would be facing the direction the voice had come from upon finishing the roll. Lifting his hands up to his head the moment he reached his feet, making it clear that he was ready to fight anyone or anything that thought it a good idea to attack him in his-

"There something wrong Kaneki?" Blake asked him from her position on her bed, an open book lying on top her lap as she stared at him with a cat-like tilt of her head.

_That's right, I spent the night in their room,_ Kaneki reminded himself, relaxing back into a much more neutral stance as he did so. _Guess I really am in a different world now..._

"No," he answered while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, "you just caught me off-guard, is all."

The bow-wearing teen blinked at him owlishly and asked, "Huh, so you're basically saying that you get yourself ready to fight _every_ time someone manages to surprise you?"

"Yeah, pretty much," he admitted after a few seconds of contemplation, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.

"Then remind me to never sneak up on you in the middle of the night," she replied, her dry tone making it hard for him to figure out the intention behind the statement. Was she joking, or was she completely serious? He just didn't know.

_Okay…_ he thought as he let out an awkward chuckle, _...not the answer I was expecting._

"So what happened to the others?" he asked upon taking notice of the severe lack of three certain people's presence.

"Class."

"Oh." Kaneki gave a single nod of his head before asking, "So how come you aren't in class then?"

"Professor Ozpin dropped by with your clothes, but before he left he asked that one of us stay behind and show you around the campus before your initiation," Blake explained to him dryly, as she picked her book back off of her lap so she could continue reading it. "So I volunteered."

He raised a skeptical eyebrow at the explanation and asked, "Couldn't Ozpin have just done this himself?"

"He said something about having something important to take care of before then," Blake replied with a shrug, not even bothering to look up from her book once again.

"Well, that doesn't sound suspicious at all," the snowy-haired half ghoul mumbled to himself sarcastically. Crossing his arms over his chest, he proceeded to ask, "So, what do we do now?"

"Well, it's simple really. You're going to put on some clothes and I'm going to keep reading this book."

_Put on some clothes?_ he repeated the sentence to himself mentally, but about three seconds later, he realized what she had meant by it. _Oh yeah, I'm still wearing nothing but my underwear, aren't I?_

As he thought this, Kaneki couldn't help but note how much his self-confidence has grown over the past few months.

Back before his ten days with Yamori, there was no doubt that standing half-naked in front of a girl he barely knew would've caused him to gain a blush that was so large, that he'd probably pass out from all the blood rushing to his head.

Now, there was enough confidence within him to do it without flustering at all. Leaps and bounds in progress.

_Where exactly are my clothes anyway?_ Kaneki asked himself, scanning the room around him for his clothes, which he found sitting on the bookcase, neatly folded into a perfect square.

"Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?" Blake asked him as he walked over to aforementioned bookcase, her amber eyes still not looking up from her book as she spoke.

"Um, sure," he began, glancing over at the bow-bearing bookworm from the corner of his eyes as he picked his clothes up from off the top of the bookcase, "what do you want to know?"

"Do you happen to have a habit of counting in your sleep?" she asked him with a hint of curiosity in her voice, which prompted his eyes to widen fractionally in response.

"No, not that I know of," Kaneki stated, subconsciously tapping his left index finger on the tip of his chin, "but then again, how exactly would I know what I do in my sleep?"

"Fair enough," the bow-wearing teen replied with a contempt nod of her head. "So as a heads up, you count down from a thousand by intervals of seven in your sleep."

"Noted," he stated while slipping on the skin-tight black suit that he wore under his clothes. The material it was made out of contouring to his body like it was a second pair of skin.

All conversation immediately died off after that single word slipped from his lips, but the silence that ensued felt strange to him.

The silence between them felt strangely mutual, comfortable even. It was almost like they made an unspoken agreement to cease all talking at that exact moment, without the actual agreement of course, because it was clear that they were both equally surprised at what was happening.

The fact that they were both naturally introverted people and were used to this kind of silence probably helped, because if they didn't, there was no doubt things between them would've gotten really awkward, really quickly.

Yet instead of acknowledging it or trying to spark up some sort of conversation, Kaneki simply continued to clothe himself and Blake continued reading through her book. Not a word being uttered between the two as the seconds ticked by. Not even when the snowy-haired half ghoul finished dressing himself and plopped himself down on the floor next to the bow-bearing bookworm's bed. They simply allowed themselves to sink further and further into it.

The mutual silence persisted on for a good while. The only sound that could be heard being the faint sound of them breathing in and out.

Unfortunately, they're reverie was shattered when the sound of the people filing into the dormitory reached the two teens' ears. The footsteps and chattering of said people, effectively destroying the serenity that permeated itself through the air around them, which prompted the two of them to let out quiet sighs of aggravation.

"That probably means that morning classes are over," Blake noted, closing the book she was reading as she moved to get off of her bed. "We should probably start heading to the cafeteria, I promised the others to bring you there once you woke up."

"Wait, what would've happened if I hadn't woken up before then?" Kaneki asked as he stood up from the ground, genuinely curious as to what she had planned if that happened.

"Then I would've woken you up," she told him as she flashed him a wry smile. The two conflicting signals making it hard for him to discern if she was joking or not. "I'm not going to go hungry just because you were too lazy to get up."

Deciding that it was probably best for him to think of it as a joke, the snowy-haired half ghoul laughed sheepishly and replied, "Good to know… So, we're going to the cafeteria, right?"

"Yeah, that's the plan," the bow-bearing bookworm stated as she stood up from her bed. The smile on her face growing a tad bit larger as she walked past him and towards the door leading out to the hallway, utter in the words. "Follow me."

And so, he did.

* * *

Kaneki's eyebrow twitched in annoyance as he followed Blake to the cafeteria.

"By your reaction, I'm guessing that you're not someone who's used to being in the limelight very often," his amber-eyed guide stated dryly, probably referring to all of the people staring at him as he walked down the hallway.

"It's not the attention that's bugging me the most," he replied before letting out an annoyed sigh.

That wasn't a complete lie.

It was true that he wasn't one to actively seek out attention from others, but he was more than confident in his ability to perform while being the center of attention. So, it wasn't the stares from his future peers that bothered him so much.

No, what really bothered him was the fact that they were all gossiping about him so openly.

For the past few months, his reputation as a dangerous ghoul garnered him a lot of attention from ghouls and doves alike. That reputation also forced them to respect him, because if they didn't, they would face the very real possibility of him ripping out their spines with nothing but his teeth.

Now, however, people were talking about him like he wasn't even in the same room and the worst part being, that he wasn't even allowed to stop them because of his agreement with Ozpin. The one that specifically told him to not do too much harm to any of the other students here without good reason.

It was an annoying little detail that the headmaster practically forced on him, but it was a reasonable one at the very least, so he resigned himself to it for the time being.

"Hang in there, we're almost at the cafeteria," Blake assured him with a small, amused smile gracing her lips. "There, people will be so wrapped up with themselves that they most likely won't even notice you."

The artificial half ghoul cracked his finger and gave a curt nod in response, silently adding, _For their sakes, let's hope that you're right._

When the two entered the cafeteria, Kaneki was immediately struck by the sheer size and grandeur of the place. It was far beyond anything he's ever seen before, but then again, the only other cafeterias he's ever seen were the ones he saw back when he was still in school, so it could be easily attributed to the fact he's only ever seen three in his entire life.

"Yeah, that was about my reaction to seeing it too," the bow-wearing teen next to him stated. "I would say you get used to it, but you never really do." He glanced over at her and found the dark-haired teen shaking her head. "Heck, I still haven't."

"Noted," he replied with yet another curt nod of his head.

"Come on, we should go get in line before they run out of food," the bow-bearing bookworm said to him while gesturing for him to follow with her hand.

"You go ahead, I'm not that hungry," the artificial half ghoul stated while subconsciously scratching his chin with his left hand. "I'll just go and see if I can find the others."

He half-expected to receive some form of resistance from her, but was surprised to see Blake simply shrug her shoulders and reply with, "Alright, they usually sit somewhere near the back corner of the cafeteria with another team." She pointed off towards the direction she was referring to. "They really shouldn't be too hard for you to spot, but come back here if you can't find them."

"Got it," he said to her, nodding once in affirmation before they went on their separate ways. Blake getting in line for lunch and Kaneki following the directions she gave him.

Much to his surprise, the other three members of team RWBY _were_ relatively easy to pick out of the crowds of people, just like Blake had told him.

The three were sitting opposite to another group of people, presumably another team of hunters in training. He started to walk over to them, but was stopped dead in his tracks when something hit him dead center of the chest. Doing so with enough force and weight, that it actually managed to knock him back a foot or two.

His instincts were just about to have him jump back and enter a combat stance, but they grinder to a halt when a loud, feminine-sounding squeak reached his ears. A sound that probably meant that he simply bumped into someone by accident.

_Dammit, I should've been paying more attention,_ Kaneki berated himself, mentally slapping a hand to his forehead as he checked to see who exactly he bumped into.

There, sitting on the ground before him was a girl wearing the standard uniform for the female students of Beacon, an empty tray that presumably once held food lying in her lap.

At first glance, she looked almost completely normal-looking. Her hair was the common hair color of brown and so were her eyes.

There was almost nothing about her that made her really stand out of the crowd. Well, other than the fact she looked more attractive than the average face in his opinion, but the one thing that made her stand out the most, was the fact she had a pair of rabbit ears adorning the top of her head.

There were _literal_ rabbit ears sticking out from her head and from what he could tell, she wasn't wearing some sort of headband, which meant that this girl seriously had rabbit ears.

_Is she one of those faunus that Ozpin told me about yesterday night?_ the artificially-made half ghoul asked himself, thinking back to the conversation he and the headmaster had the night before. _Yeah, he said that faunus are most easily distinguished from their human counterparts by the fact they either had the ears or tails of animals. So it's probably safe to say that she must be one of them._

According to Ozpin, the faunus were a race that grew alongside the humans. They were by all means physically superior to the human race, but were always outnumbered by the humans, so they were always considered to be the lesser being. Meaning that discrimination against the faunus ran rampant with the general populace for quite a long time.

Apparently, there was even a time where the human race tried to force all faunus to live in a single area called Menagerie, which understandably angered a lot of the faunus. Soon enough, a full out war between the two races over the topic of faunus rights broke out, which the more populated of the two sides ultimately lost.

With the victory, the faunus forced the human government to stop the shipping of all of the faunus to Menagerie and win a form of equal rights, which was probably one of the only good things to come out of the war in Ozpin's opinion.

The war also caused the faunus to gain a predominantly negative reputation with the human race and vice versa, causing a lot more tension to grow between the two groups.

At the time, the headmaster described the situation as 'volatile at best', which then lead him to telling Kaneki about the faunus-rights activist group called: the White Fang.

At first, it strove for peace and equality between the two races, but then, something inside the organization changed and now, they wanted the destruction of the entirety of the human race.

When Ozpin first told him about the faunus, Kaneki immediately started drawing parallels between the faunus and the ghouls of his world.

From the blatant discrimination directed towards them to the interspecies fighting against the human race. It seemed so similar.

Hell, the only real difference between the two races' situations he could find, was the fact that the humans from his world actually had justification to be afraid of ghouls. Since the only thing that ghouls could eat without literally poisoning themselves were human beings and other ghouls, it only made sense that they would clash with one another for pure survival, which only made the metaphorical line between black and white clear for the two races involved.

Here, however, the line between right and wrong was much more blurred. Both sides had a way to justify their actions, no matter how terrible, and there was even a select group of people who firmly rested in the gray area between them.

In his eyes, the faunus situation here in Remnant was much more complicated than the situation with the ghouls from Earth. He, being the literal manifestation of a gray line in the latter, could only take solace in the fact that coexistence here actually seemed possible.

Getting back to the situation at hand, the artificially made half ghoul knelt down and reached his hand out to the girl so he could help her up. Only for her to flinch at the sight of his approaching hand. He blinked at the reaction in confusion.

_Did I do something wrong?_ Kaneki asked himself mentally.

"Um, are you okay?" he asked the girl, using a tone that emphasized the confusion and guilt he felt. "I'm sorry for bumping into you and all," he offered her an apology coupled with a sheepish smile, "I guess I should have been paying more attention to where I was going."

The chocolate-haired faunus opened her eyes and tentatively shifted her gaze onto him, staring at the hand he was offering her with uncertainty in her eyes. The display reminded him of an animal who was wondering if the hand offering it food was safe or not, which probably wasn't the most appropriate analogy to use in this situation, but the shoe fit so he went along with it.

After a few moments of staring at his hand, she eventually took grasp of it were extremely soft hands and he pulled her back up to her feet.

"T-thank you," she told him the moment she was back up on two feet, her tone apologetic and soft as she bashfully rubbed her elbow.

He smiled reassuringly at her discomfort and replied with, "Don't mention it."

That exchange was immediately followed up by a several second-long stint of silence between the two, and unlike the one with Blake, the one he was currently experiencing was incredibly awkward.

"Your shirt..." she spoke up suddenly, prompting the snowy-haired ghoul to blink and look down at himself, and what he found made him let out a tired sigh.

It turned out that the empty tray that she was holding, actually wasn't empty when they collided and the bump had caused a good amount of her food to spill onto the fabric of his shirt. Thankfully, it wouldn't stain because of its dark color, but that wasn't even close to being his main concern at the moment.

No, his main concern wasn't what his clothes looked like, it was what they smelt like that concerned him the most and to put it bluntly, they smelt like shit. This time, however, he didn't actually mean that they smelt like human excrement, but they smelt just as bad. In all actuality, his clothes smelt like meat that had been left to rot in the sun for several days and that smell, was accompanied with the faint aroma of a vomit-soaked sponge.

Kaneki highly doubted that the food here actually smelt as bad as it did to the other students around him. It only smelt that way to him because he was a ghoul; and everything that wasn't either coffee, water, or human meat smelt and tasted disgusting to ghouls, which was probably a good thing considering human food was literally poison to ghouls if a ghoul were to ingest human food and let it digest, one of two things would happen to them: either they would regurgitate the food back up like the poison it was or keep it inside and have their reflexes, strength, and speed hindered immensely.

"Don't worry about it," the snowy-haired half ghoul replied, flashing the girl an understanding smile as he wiped the food of his shirt with his hand, trying his best to ignore the disgusting smell and texture of the food as he did so. "It's just a shirt and I can always get it washed later, so no harm, no foul."

This caused yet another bout of awkward silence to grow in between the two, but it was eventually broken when the chocolate-haired faunus grabbed him by the wrist suddenly and tugging on it lightly as she said, "Follow me."

The snowy-haired half ghoul blinked at the meek-looking girl holding onto his wrist before tentatively nodding, prompting her to start dragging him towards the exit of the cafeteria with a surprisingly tight grip on aforementioned appendage.

A single thought ran through his mind as he got dragged out of the cafeteria, _What the hell am I getting myself into?_

* * *

**Out of all the places Kaneki expected to end up in when his chocolate-haired companion dragged him out of the cafeteria, he definitely didn't expect to find himself standing in a what was presumably a laundry room, but that was probably due to the fact he had an overactive imagination that was constantly on the lookout for any sort of threat, even in what were the most mundane of situations.**

"So, what exactly are we doing here again?" the snowy-haired half ghoul asked while he subconsciously began scanning the room around him, looking for anything that might indicate a trap. He found none, but that didn't make put his guard down, not wanting to be caught by surprise if his paranoia proved to be warranted.

"I-I guess I probably should've told you that before dragging you here, huh?" the rabbit-eared faunus asked him sheepishly, but he found that the way she said it, made it seem like she was talking more to herself than to him. "I wanted to wash your shirt for you since it's technically my fault it's dirty in the first place."

The snowy-haired half ghoul blinked at the statement, smiled gratefully and replied with, "You really didn't have to go through the trouble."

"Yeah, I know, but it's more about the principle to me than anything else really," she told him bluntly, an embarrassed smile finding its way onto her features. "I don't know too many people who would've reacted half as nicely as you did," she continued in a tone that only further emphasized her embarrassment, "so you could say that this is a repayment for, you know... uh, not cussing me out."

The half ghoul just stared at the girl for a moment, subconsciously thinking, _Is that really the only reason she dragged me here?_

Doing so for what felt like the millionth time in their conversation, Kaneki blinked owlishly at the faunus and then felt an amused smile crawl its way onto his lips at the absurdity of it all.

"Alright then," he began, shrugging as he reached for the hem of his shirt, "if that's what you want."

As a test, he then pulled his shirt over his head. All the while, the artificially-made half ghoul fully expected the girl to try and attack him while he was blinded, but was pleasantly surprised to find that she hadn't even moved a muscle when he finally managed to get the shirt off.

Holding said shirt out to her, he waited for her to take it from him and she promptly did so.

_Still nothing?_ the snowy-haired half ghoul wondered as he watched her walk over to one of the few washing machines that weren't currently in use.

"So… are you a new student or something?" the rabbit-eared faunus began as she placed the shirt inside of said washing machine, clearly just trying to find something to talk about so they wouldn't succumb to more awkward silence. "I don't think I've seen you around campus before, not even at the beginning of the year introduction for all the new first-years."

The half ghoul didn't answer that question immediately like he had been doing for the entirety of their conversation up until that point. No, instead, he took a moment to think about his next words over carefully. Knowing that he couldn't afford to give away too much information about himself before he met with Ozpin again to confirm his backstory.

"That's probably because I just got accepted into Beacon last night," he told her when he finally found an answer that he was comfortable with giving, every fiber of his being silently hoping that the chocolate-haired faunus wouldn't notice that short moment of hesitation in his voice.

Thankfully, she seemed way too engrossed in her current task to notice.

"Last night?" she repeated almost incredulously, the amount of curiosity in her voice reaching such high levels that he swore he could actually feel it in the air around him. "You got accepted into Beacon last night?"

"Um… yeah, why do you ask?" he asked since he truthfully didn't know what exactly that statement entailed.

"I've been going to this school for two years now and this first time I've ever heard of anyone, and I mean anyone, getting accepted into Beacon once first-year initiations were over," the girl explained to him, the awkwardness that once plagued her tone almost completely gone. "You must have done something really special to convince Ozpin otherwise."

_At the very least, I got her talking to me normally now,_ Kaneki thought to himself, inwardly making note of said change in demeanor before cracking the middle joint of his middle finger.

"I really wouldn't call what I did special," he replied as he normally would, but this time, however, he actually meant it. Truthfully, he didn't see how killing those four beowolves could be considered special at all, especially when they were as predictable as toddlers during their fight, but then again, maybe he was just so used to fighting enemies so much stronger than himself that the beowolves just seemed easier by comparison.

"I really just did what I felt was necessary," the snowy-haired half ghoul added, doing so with a finality that should've made it clear he didn't want to talk about the subject anymore, all the while hoping that he had taken just enough off of it to not come across as rude.

"What was necessary, huh? the chocolate-haired faunus parroted his words, not even bothering to use a tone that made it seem like she wasn't trying to figure out exactly what he meant by it.

"So, what about you?" he asked her, hoping that he would be able to shift the focus on the conversation onto something other than himself. "How long have you been going to Beacon?"

"Oh, um… I've been going to Beacon for a couple of years now," she answered, clearly taken off-guard by the suddenness of his question. "This is actually the beginning of my second year here actually."

_So, if this is her second year here, and since a majority of the first years seem to be of seventeen years of age, that would probably make her around the ages of eighteen and twenty,_ Kaneki mused to himself mentally. _That is, of course, if she isn't a special case like Ruby and got accepted into Beacon early, but then again, how skilled would she have to be to gain that kind of privilege?_

He never actually got the opportunity to see Ruby fight, so he didn't actually know how skilled of a fighter she was, but he assumed that she had to be pretty good to warrant such a jump of education. It was a lot like how children with advanced intellectual abilities moved up to higher forms of education, but replace math with the killing of soulless creatures bent on the destruction of the human race.

So, could the chocolate-haired faunus before him be facing similar circumstances? Kaneki highly doubted it.

Not because she didn't look the part, because god knows Ruby didn't look like a Grimm killing machine herself, but because the probability of their being two child prodigies being found in such succession was highly unlikely at best. Especially if they were solely referring to one's combat ability alone which was something that had to be taught, unlike something like intellectual ability that could just be plain genetic.

Then again, she could've just as easily gotten here on her intellectual ability alone, or even a combination of the two, but in short of flat out asking someone how and when the rabbit-eared faunus got into Beacon, he would probably never know. She was right in front of him though, so he could easily ask the source herself if he so wanted, but he ultimately decided against it as he knew that would come across as rude and intrusive. There was always the option of trying to have her answer it on her own through some careful wording on his part. An option he deemed to be unreasonable as she seemed like the kind of person who didn't give out personal information so freely.

That left him with approximately zero ways to further the current topic of conversation. Well, at least to the point where he could gain the information he was looking for.

_Maybe I could-_ the half ghoul began before he was cut off by the very faunus he was busy thinking about.

"Um, are you alright?" she asked him, her voice harboring a tone that sounded both confused and worried to him.

The snowy-haired half ghoul in question could only blink owlishly in response, which was mainly because a good portion of his mind was still reeling from being so suddenly pried away from his thoughts.

"Hey, are you alright?" she asked him again, raising her voice to a slightly higher decibel than it was before, which really only made her voice a little bit louder than how most people would normally whisper. Nonetheless, it managed to get his attention.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," he replied reassuringly, stuttering a little as he spoke because of the few remaining cobwebs in his head.

"Really now?" she asked, her tone simply dripping with an understandable skepticism.

Kaneki gave her a nod, scratching the back of his head as he explained what he meant in a bit more detail, "I have a tendency to space out when I think about things too hard."

He wasn't lying. It was something that increasingly worried the other members of his group after he escaped from the grips of Aogiri Tree. There were times where he would spend hours on end simply staring at a blank wall, simply thinking and sometimes, it would take someone literally shaking him out of his thoughts to get him to stop.

It worried him, but like many times before that worry wasn't meant for himself, he was more worried about what that meant to the welfare of his friends than his own.

Truth be told, he actually gave them that very same response every time he would emerge from said stupors. It never really seemed to assure them of his wellness, but that was probably because they knew him well enough to know that he would never give them the real answer. The last thing they needed was to waste their time worrying about him. They had their own lives to worry about, after all.

"So, how long was I out?" he asked the chocolate-haired faunus before him curiously, hoping that it would put their conversation back on track, whatever track that was.

"I don't really know, I wasn't really keeping track of the time..." she trailed off awkwardly. "I'm almost finished cleaning your shirt though," she added, "it just needs to finish drying."

"Oh, was I really out of it for that long?" he asked her, pretty much wearing the guilt he felt on his sleeve at that point. "Sorry about that…" he trailed off trying to find the right words to convey guilt he felt, "... I know that standing here, watching me stare into empty space while you do my laundry probably wasn't how you expected, or wanted to spend your lunch break."

"You don't need to apologize," she told him in such a reassuring tone that it immediately soothed any guilt he was harboring. "Truth be told, as of recently, this has been one of the nicer lunch breaks I've had."

This time it was his turn to be skeptical, asking, "Really, how?"

The rabbit-eared faunus bit on her lower lip, which instantaneously told him that she wasn't sure if saying what was on her mind was a good idea.

So, as to ease her worries, he promptly told her, "You don't have to say it if you're not comfortable with telling me." He flashed her a smile that was one part amused and one part sheepish, adding, "I mean, I don't even know what your name is yet."

"N-no, it's alright," she replied, the surprise in her voice making it clear that she hadn't expected him to say that. "You were probably going to find out about it one way or another, so I might as well get it over with now."

"What do you mean?" Kaneki asked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew what she was going to tell him.

"Well, how do I put this?" she began, her voice sounding as flustered and unsure as ever. "As you can see, I'm not exactly... human," she continued awkwardly, probably making reference to the rabbit ears sitting on top of her head, which twitched slightly as she spoke, "and that often leads some of the other students to… tease me for it… a lot."

"Let me guess, they don't want to get caught so the only time they actually do so is when class isn't in session, which would most likely be during passing periods or when you break for lunch," the artificial ghoul surmised, which garnered a nod of affirmation from said faunus in response. "Have you told anyone about it yet, like one of your teachers?"

"Of course I have, but they can't really do anything about it since discrimination between humans and the faunus has always been a problem," the rabbit-eared faunus explained before letting out a tired sigh. "The only real thing the teachers can do is openly discourage it during classes."

"How about your friends?" He pressed on, hoping to find that someone that would've helped her against such blatant discrimination. "Have they done something about it?"

"No, but they certainly do want to," she replied with a bit of pride in her voice.

"Then why haven't they done something, what's stopping them?"

"It's because I told them not to," the chocolate-haired faunus began before explaining what she meant. "Having someone stand up for me would make me look weak... and that would just make them think that they can get away with pushing me around whenever I don't have one of my friends with me."

"But you also can't stand up for yourself because that would just confirm the violent stereotypes people have given the faunus over the years, and give them a somewhat valid reason to hate the faunus," the snowy-haired half ghoul finished for her, having already seen the cycle play out before with the ghouls from his world. "So, I take it, instead of fighting it," he continued, still drawing from past experiences, "you're just going to take the blows and hope it eventually stops?"

"Y-yeah," she began with a stutter, clearly surprised by the accuracy of statement. "How'd you know?"

"You could say I've seen it happen before," he answered, knowing full well that the answer was extremely vague, but he wasn't going to give away such personal information to a complete stranger.

"So, what do you think I should do?" she asked him curiously.

"Since you can't force them to change their minds about the faunus, you prove them wrong," Kaneki stated as he thought back to his first confrontation with that dove named Amon. "Make them see that you're different from what they think the faunus are. The change most likely won't happen overnight, but I'm sure it'll happen given enough time."

The rabbit-eared faunus opened her mouth to respond, but she was promptly cut off by a sudden beeping noise coming from his left.

"Ah, that must mean that your shirt's finished drying," she stated before letting out an awkward chuckle at the machine's sudden intrusion on their conversation.

"You can go back to the cafeteria, I can get my shirt out of the dryer on my own," the snowy-haired half ghoul told her when he noticed that she was already walking towards it. "I'm sure you're still pretty hungry since more of your food ended up in my shirt than in your stomach."

Not a second later, the chocolate-eyed faunus's stomach let out a loud grumble that was almost comically loud, causing aforementioned faunus to let out another flustered chuckle.

"I guess you're right," she stated, tone just as embarrassed as her prior chuckle, "and it's Velvet."

"Hm?"

"Earlier you said you didn't know my name, so that's it," the chocolate-haired faunus explained, right before sticking out her hand to him, which he took as a sign that she wanted to shake hands with him, despite the fact that said hand was shaking slightly as she did so. "My name is Velvet, Velvet Scarlatina."

"Kaneki, Ken Kaneki," the artificially made half ghoul replied, a thin smile forming on his lips at the faunus's attempt to be assertive as he took her hand in his, idly noting how soft it was before shaking it. "It was a pleasure meeting you Velvet, so see you around?"

"D-definitely," was the reply she gave him before walking past him and out the door leading into the laundry room, moving so fast that Kaneki almost missed the faint amount of red that formed on her cheeks as she left.

_What a strange girl,_ the half ghoul thought as he watched her leave. _Now, I really hope this wasn't a trap... _He cracked his finger and continued on in a much darker tone as he walked over to the dryer that she had looked at earlier, _It really would be a shame if she turned out to be nothing more than a rotten bean..._

To make a long story short, Kaneki had never been more relieved to see a simple piece of black fabric in his life.

* * *

**_I wonder where Ruby and the others are?_****Kaneki asked himself as he walked back down the hallway Velvet had dragged him down earlier. ****_I didn't hear a bell so it's probably safe to assume that their lunch break hasn't ended yet,_****he noted, ****_so I guess I should try the cafeteria before anywhere else_****.**

With a plan of action firmly set into his mind, the snowy-haired half ghoul proceeded to retrace his steps back to the cafeteria. All the while, doing his best to ignore the whispers of the students he passed by on his way there.

_I know that they're all essentially the age of high school and college students, but this is starting to get ridiculous,_ he groaned to himself internally as he picked up his pace down the hallway. _They must have something better to talk about than new kid no one knows about._

When he finally entered the only safe haven from the non-stop gossiping going on behind him, or at least the only one he knew of, Kaneki let out a relieved sigh. His dull, gray eyes immediately finding their way over to the corner where he saw the members of team RWBY earlier.

_Good, they're still there,_ he thought upon seeing the four girls he met the day prior - all of which sitting at the same table - relieved beyond belief that he wouldn't have to go searching around an unfamiliar campus ground for them.

Getting to the table they were sitting at was actually a pretty simple affair. Mainly because, unlike his prior attempt to get to team RWBY, he mapped a route out to said table in his head before heading towards it, which it possible for him to get to the table without taking his eyes off what was directly in front of him.

As he neared the table, the artificially-made half ghoul noticed a scraggly-looking teen with blonde hair stand up from the side opposite of team RWBY and say, "... he's not just a jerk to me, he's a jerk to everyone."

From the looks of it, the statement was meant for the three sitting on the same side of the table as the blonde, which Kaneki assumed to be the boy's fellow teammates, and the members of team RWBY as well. That, of course, prompted him to assume that they were all friends on some sort of level.

Truth be told, the black-clad young man could really care less about what they were discussing. Whatever it was, it definitely sounded personal and that meant it had nothing to do with him. So, he wasn't even going to try and involve himself into it. Instead, he slowed his pace towards the table and waited for the scraggly blonde to pass him, before speeding up once again. The two teens sending the other a wayward glance as they passed, but no words were exchanged between the two as they did so.

As Kaneki looked the blonde up and down, he couldn't stop himself from thinking that the younger of the two really looked out of place - in terms of physical build - especially compared to the some of the other students he saw walking down the hallway a few minutes ago. Then again, the boy did make it into the school, so he assumed that there was a lot more strength than his outward appearance let on.

As the blonde walked out of his peripheral view, Kaneki couldn't help but feel as though there was something awfully familiar about the boy, but he couldn't figure it out for the life of him.

_Where have I felt this before...?_ he mused to himself, taking a moment to crack his finger before shoving the question to the deepest part of his mind. _Stop it, _he berated himself while putting his focus back onto the task at hand, _there are a lot more important things to focus on at the moment!_

"Kaneki?" the all too familiar sound of Ruby's voice rang out as he neared his goal, making everyone at the table turn their heads towards him and the sound of the scraggly blonde teen's footsteps gradually moving away from behind him stop all together.

His mouth opened in an attempt to respond, but he promptly cut himself off when a white blur suddenly rushed up to him and jabbed a finger into his chest, asking, "There you are! Where in the world have you been?"

_Wait, wasn't she on the other side of the table a few seconds ago?_ Kaneki asked himself as he stared at the white-clad girl standing in front of him with wide eyes. He could feel droplets of sweat form on his forehead as her pale-blue eyes bore into him with the most scrutinizing glare he's ever bore witness to, an awkward chuckle escaping from his lips in response to it.

"Sorry about me disappearing like that," he told her as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "I bumped into someone and got their food all over my shirt, so I had to go to the laundry room and get it washed again." He flashed her an apologetic smile as he added, "Sorry about that, in hindsight, I probably should've told you before I went."

The white-clad teen blinked at the statement and replied, "The laundry room… Seriously?"

The snowy-haired half ghoul nodded in response, prompting Weiss to let out a tired sigh as she slapped herself in the forehead.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked her curiously as he raised an eyebrow at her.

"No, nothing's wrong," was her response to the question, though the way she said it really didn't convince him otherwise. "Absolutely… nothing."

"She spent almost the entirety of lunch insisting that we go and find you before lunch ended," Blake chimed in from out of the blue, much to Weiss' obvious chagrin. "Mainly because she was worried that we would be the ones to blame if you didn't show up to your initiation on time."

The answer hit him like a punch in the gut. It hurt, but it also made him realize that he could have handled things a lot better than how he had and that was probably hurt the most. There was a chance to stop or lessen the pain before it even arrived, but because of a mistake he made, there would be pain.

The last thing he wanted was to hurt the people who've been going out of their way to help him ever since he first arrived here. So, that's why his next words were what they were...

"Oh... really?" the snowy-haired half ghoul asked, his tone literally dripping with guilt as he averted his eyes from Weiss'. "If I had known, I totally would've came and told you guys before going there… Sorry, it won't happen again."

* * *

Weiss blinked in response to the words that just came out of Kaneki's mouth. When Blake told him about her earlier actions, she expected something along the lines of a well-natured jab aimed at her person as her other friends would, but she never expected for him to say something like _that_. He actually seemed to feel genuinely bad for having worried her, probably even more than he should actually feel.

It actually made her feel kind of guilty for making him feel so guilty.

The heir of the Schnee family let out a defeated sigh and replied in an annoyed tone, though deep down she felt like she just kicked a puppy, "You don't have to apologize… To be honest, I probably shouldn't have reacted the way I did to begin with."

* * *

At that exact moment, everyone not named Kaneki or Weiss blinked owlishly at the statement, none of them expecting that kind of response from the usually steadfast heiress of the Schnee fortune.

In response to the statement, Kaneki's eyes widened slightly as they snapped back onto Weiss'. He stared at the girl for a few seconds before letting a thin smile spread across his lips.

"Alright then…" he began before turning his head towards the three members of team RWBY and asking, "So, what did I miss when I was gone?"

"Hey guys, I hate to interrupt your little reunion and all, but could any of you guys please explain to us what the heck is going on?" the scraggly blonde teen from earlier cut in suddenly, causing everyone's attention to shift onto his way.

"An explanation would be rather helpful," said one of the three teens sitting across from team RWBY, this one in particular being one of the two males in a group of six females. He had long, messy black hair that was tied up into a ponytail that could have easily reached the middle of his back and a pair of eyes that were the color... magenta.

"Well, it's sort of a long story…" Ruby stated, right before a loud, bell-like sound rang through out from the speakers placed all along the walls of the cafeteria, prompting her to add, "... one that we don't seem to have the time to tell unfortunately."

"What do you mean?" asked one of the girls sitting on the opposite side to team RWBY, this one having long, red hair that was also tied up in a ponytail and a pair of deep emerald eyes. "You could always tell us on the way to our next class," she suggested, her tone sounding way too professional to belong to a high school student. "We do have ten minutes before class starts back up again, don't we?"

"That may be true, but we have special orders from headmaster Ozpin that need to be carried out before we get go to our next classes," Weiss informed the other four in a tone that was a hair from sounding condescending.

"Aw, really?" whined the fourth and final member of the team on the side of the table opposite to team RWBY. She had short orange hair and pale blue eyes, pouting childishly as she continued, "But I really wanted to hear it though."

"Sorry Nora, I promise to tell you some other time… just not now, unfortunately," Ruby apologized in a frantic tone as she stood up from the table. She then turned to the rest of her teammates at the table and asked, "Ready to go you two?"

This prompted Blake and Yang to stand up from their seats and nod in affirmation.

"Weiss?" the red-clad girl asked the heiress, who also nodded in affirmation, prompting her to add, "Alright, team RWBY, let's get Kaneki to that initiation!"

Ruby excitedly pumped her fist into the air after saying all of that, probably expecting her other teammates to mimic her, just to find that she was the only one doing it.

"Come on guys don't leave me hanging…" Ruby told her teammates through a smile that she was forcing to keep on, which lead to said teammates shaking their heads at her in complete unison.

Prompting the red-clad teen to slump her shoulders forward and mutter the only two words that could describe her feelings, "Aw man."

* * *

Kaneki stepped out onto the edge of the cliff in front of him and let his gaze wander out towards the forest in front of him, idly wondering what exactly lay ahead of him in that expanse of green that awaited him.

As it turned out, the members of team RWBY did their job a little too well and got him to the spot Ozpin had designated as their rendezvous point a full ten minutes too early, giving him plenty of time to do… whatever the hell he was currently doing.

Whatever it was, he remembered doing the same thing right before he tried to save the manger and the others at Anteiku. He didn't know why he did it at the time, but he did have a vague reason as to why he was doing it now.

The artificially-made half ghoul believed that he was doing this because a part of him knew that this was the point of no return for him. That this was just him trying to figure out if going past it was a good idea or not. It was and he truthfully didn't know what to do, so his mind immediately went to standing out on this cliff as an response.

_Then again, it's not like I have a plethora of options at my disposal in this situation,_ he thought to himself as he mentally reviewed said choices in his head.

Back during their talk in that clock tower, Ozpin gave him two options. It was either go through with the initiation and spend the next few years of his life in an academy learning how to kill Grimm effectively, while allowing the headmaster to search for a way to get him back to his own world in his free time. Or, reject the invitation given to him and focus one-hundred percent of his time on trying to find a way back to his home universe all by himself.

Both choices had their pros and their cons.

For instance, accepting the invitation would gain him the backing of Ozpin, a man who described himself as up to his knees with connections thanks to his position as headmaster of a hunting academy. An ally like that would prove to be invaluable when, not if, _when_ his ghoul nature was exposed to the public, which was probably only a matter of time at this point.

There was, however, one problem that accepting entailed and it was that the responsibilities that came with becoming a hunter-in-training. They would probably leave him with very little time to actually look for a way to get back home. He was lucky that Ozpin seemed to really want him to come to Beacon Academy, because the moment the headmaster gave him the invitation to join, he immediately offered to look into the matter for him so that he could focus on his studies, which, now that he thought about it, pretty much got rid of the only problem going to Beacon entailed for him.

Unfortunately, his other option, and far more favored option, of doing it on his own was more susceptible to problems.

First, he would need to get himself somewhere to stay and that would obviously require him to gain a source of income to pay the bills, which basically meant that he was going to need to find a job.

It didn't have to be glamorous, or even legal, he just needed a job that could pay well enough to make rent for a cheap apartment, something that he highly doubted would be difficult to find, but finding and performing that job would definitely take some time.

There was also the problem of having to learn about the world around him and its systems - which would too take some time - because he knew that his lack of understanding on the subject would probably raise some suspicions after a while.

Then after that, he would need to find a steady food source, preferably one that wouldn't draw too much attention from the local law enforcement.

Usually, hunting humans or searching for corpses of the recently deceased - like a ghoul would normally do - would be the most convenient way to get food, but this was a place where doing such things would probably raise some more eyebrows in this world, especially since the authorities couldn't just blame everything on ghouls like they would. For example, if someone from his world were to go missing in the middle of the night, the cops would almost immediately assume that a ghoul got to them and report the incident to the CCG.

But since there were no ghouls in this world, it was probably safe to assume that the cops would be more fervent in their search for the missing persons, and if too many of these cases popped up in a single area, he knew that they would eventually just crackdown on it so hard that it would be easier to move to another area than to actually stay in that area for much longer.

Then, there was the newly discovered option of eating the creatures of Grimm, which would sidestep the problem of hunting in the same area too frequently and getting found out by the local law enforcement entirely.

That, of course, meant that he would need to go out of the cities and into places where they inhabited. The only problem was that he knew that the people monitoring those places, the hunters, were twenty times more powerful than anything a police department could send his way and would definitely notice the sudden decrease in the number of grimm in the area.

Basically, the exact same problem, but twenty times worse than the alternative if he were to be caught.

So, in short, Kaneki could either jump through all the hoops that going it alone would entail, just to have a freedom of movement that wasn't entirely free. Or, just accept Ozpin's proposal and just hope that the man wasn't lying to him about helping him look for a way back home.

A tired sigh escaped his lips when he realized what the problem was.

It was him.

He was the problem.

His own inability to accept the support of others when it was offered to him was the problem.

Inability.

God, the word seemed to follow him around no matter what he did.

Back during his ten days with Yamori, he swore that he would get rid of anything standing in between him and keeping those he cared about safe, even if getting rid of it meant going against everything he ever stood for.

This time would be no different. He wasn't going to allow his own weakness to stand between him and his friends, not again.

If that meant pushing away his own irrational insecurities and accepting Ozpin's help, then so be it.

"Uh, Kaneki," the sound of Ruby's voice coming from right besides him was the first thing he heard when he pulled himself out his thoughts.

The snowy-haired half ghoul glanced over at the red-clad teenager and asked her the simple question of, "Ah, do you need something?"

"Oh, I was just wondering…" she began as she fidgeted under his gaze, which made it clear that something about what she was going to ask made her uncomfortable for some reason or the other. "...If you'd have a race with me sometime."

"A… Race?" he repeated in his bout of confusion.

"Y-yeah a race!" Ruby exclaimed cheerily, using a tone that reminded him way too much of an excited Hinami. "When I saw that you could keep up with me yesterday, I thought it'd be fun for us to have a little race to see who's faster." Not knowing how else to respond, he simply blinked at the red-clad girl dumbfoundedly, which prompted her to say, "Of course, you don't have to if you don't want to. I know that you have a lot on your mind because of your initiation and I know that you must want to get yourself prepared for it since your entire future here at Beacon depends on it, so you probably don't want to hear me ramble on about stuff that doesn't have anything to do with what you need to focus on."

She glanced over her shoulder at her three teammates, who were watching the exchange from the sidelines and asked, "Ugh, why have none of you stopped me yet? I'm making myself look like a complete idiot! Why can't I stop talking!"

Instead of offering advice that could help her in the situation, they all simply shrugged their shoulders in response.

Kaneki blinked at the red-clad girl as she rambled on and on, wondering what in the world he did to cause her to enter that kind of state, though he did have to admit that the sight was pretty amusing. But despite how amusing he found it, he decided that it was probably best to stop her before she embarrassed herself any further.

"Sure, I'll race you," he said with a thin smile spread on his lips, using the same tone he would use whenever he spoke with Hinami without even noticing, which caused all speech from the red-clad girl to cease immediately.

She blinked and stared at him as if he had just told her the meaning of life, before asking him, "Wait, really?"

"Yeah," he shrugged before cupping his chin with his left hand and adding, "Sounds like it would be fun."

Truth be told, it really didn't sound like that much fun to him, but comparing his ability to Ruby's would be a good way to gauge his current skill when compared to that of a child prodigy, and see what he needed to be improved on in the future. The wide, almost Hinami-like smile that now graced her features was really just a bonus in his books.

"Good, I was starting to think you were going to say no. Oh, and by the way, I was supposed to tell you that Ozpin and Ms. Goodwitch are here," Ruby stated suddenly, causing the snowy-haired half ghoul's eyes to widen slightly. He turned his body over to where the members of team RWBY were standing behind him and found that two new people had joined their little group standing out on the cliffside.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kaneki," Ozpin began cordially, "while it's nice to see that you've already started making some friends, I must advise that we continue on to your initiation." He asked while looking down at the watch on his wrist, "You're only wasting your own time here, after all."

"Right," the black-clad young man said as he gave the headmaster a curt nod, taking a moment to turn back to Ruby and flash her an appreciative smile, before walking over to the silver-haired man standing next Ms. Goodwitch.

"Oh, here's that mask you wanted me to hold on to for you," Ozpin told him as the half ghoul approached, pulling said mask from out of one of his coat pockets and holding it out to him.

"Mask? You have a mask?" Blake asked him as he took his mask from Ozpin, prompting him to shift his attention onto the bow-bearing bookworm and give her a curt nod of the head in response. "Why in the world would you ever need to wear a mask?"

"Are you really expecting to get a straight answer from someone who wears a mask?" he asked while an amused smirk crept on his lips, clipping the main portion of the mask around his neck as he spoke. "One of the main reasons why people wear masks is to keep something about themselves secret, after all."

Deciding not to wait for a response, the snowy-haired half ghoul pulled the mask over his mouth and let out a relieved sigh when he felt the leather of the mask contour itself to the curvature of his face like it had done so many times before. The mask's toothy and gum-less smile imposing itself over his own mouth.

_One more piece,_ he thought to himself as he reached for the final and most recognizable component of his mask: the eye-patch that covered up his right eye because of its lack of a kakugan, though it was really because Uta, the ghoul who made the mask, wanted him to see the world through the one eye he covered up the most of the time.

The artificially-made half ghoul closed aforementioned eye and slipped the eye-patch over it, noticing the difference in his depth perception almost immediately. This form of depth perception would have been a major hindrance to most people, but not to him, which was probably attributed to the fact he wore an eye-patch for several weeks before receiving the mask. It got him so used to the limited depth perception that he found that he fought just as well with it on as he did with it off.

"Wait, doesn't that imply you haven't been entirely honest with us since you wear a mask too?" Weiss asked upon noticing the discrepancy in his words, prompting him to shrug his shoulders nonchalantly. "Oh come on, at least answer me with actual words!"

"That's enough, Ms. Schnee," Goodwitch cut into the conversation suddenly. "As much as I would like to watch you give Mr. Kaneki here a tongue lashing, he does have an initiation to get done."

"Fine," the heiress to the Schnee fortune stated reluctantly before letting out a frustrated sigh and turning to the mask-clad teen and saying, "but once you're back, you're telling us whether or not you've been telling us the truth."

The snowy-haired half ghoul let out an amused scoff as he glanced over towards the girl with the same hair color as him, cracking his index finger and stated in a completely emotionless tone, "You do know how contradictory that statement sounds, right?" This elicited a narrowed glare from Weiss, which made him add in a much more amused tone, "Don't worry, I'll be sure to tell you everything once I'm back." Then suddenly, his voice suddenly became much more solemn as he continued to speak, "I'm sure I'll have a lot to answer to for once I'm done here."

"Wait, what's that supposed to mean?" Weiss asked, but she would receive no answer from the black-clad young man, who turned to the two advisers in charge of his initiation.

"Ready to begin, Mr. Kaneki?" Ms. Goodwitch asked him in her usual professional tone, prompting the snowy-haired half ghoul to nod in affirmation. She then gestured over to a metal panel that was lying on the ground a few feet next to them as she added, "Then please stand on this platform and face towards the edge of the cliff."

Doing as he was instructed, the artificially-made half ghoul strode over and stepped onto said platform, taking note of how it ever so slightly gave under his weight, before turning towards the edge of the cliff, prompting him to think, _Why do I feel like I'm not going to be standing on this platform for long?_

"Mr. Kaneki, as I explained to you last night, every student who wants to attend Beacon must go through an initiation to prove that they truly belong to be here," Ozpin began, taking a moment to clear his throat softly before continuing, "for you to pass, you must make your way to the North end of the forest, please don't hesitate to destroy everything that stands in your path." the silver-haired headmaster pushed his glasses up the bridge of nose as he continued, "Once you reach the end of the path, you'll find an artifact, bring me that artifact and you pass."

"Understood," Kaneki stated with a nod of his head, a look of determination burning faintly in his one visible eye.

"Very well, take up a ready position and you'll be launched into Emerald Forest," Ozpin instructed before adding in the words, "I wish you luck."

"There's no such thing as luck," the snowy-haired half ghoul stated, offhandedly quoting a former voice in his head as he readied himself to be launched into the forest. "Only situations combined with circumstance."

If Ozpin said something in response, he didn't hear it because the platform under him suddenly shot him into the air and towards the Emerald Forest.

* * *

The members of team RWBY watched as the black-clad young man soared towards the forest at high speed, their eyes tracking his flight path all the way until he crashed into the trees and out of sight completely.

"Okay, who else thought that Kaneki's mask was awesome?" Yang asked her teammates suddenly, the excitement in her voice making it seem like she had been holding the question in and was just waiting for the moment she could ask it.

"Awesome?" Weiss repeated incredulously, a cold shiver running up her spine when she remembered the mask and the toothy grin that it displayed. "That thing was downright creepy."

"Aw come on Weiss, you have to admit that Kaneki looked pretty cool with that thing on," Yang prodded before turning her attention onto Ruby with the intention of asking her thoughts on the mask, but stopped when she saw what her little sister was doing. The red-clad team leader was staring off towards the forest below them, a troubled expression spread across her features as she did so.

"There something wrong, lil' sis?" the blonde-haired teen asked with a hint of concern present in her voice, even though the answer was pretty obvious to anyone with a basic grasp of human expressions, so basically everyone other than aliens and the socially awkward.

This seemed to be enough to break the red-clad teen out of her daze because immediately after she asked the question, Ruby blinked and looked over to her, giving her an unconvincing answer in response, "No, nothing's wrong. I'm completely fine, I swear." A raised eyebrow from Yang was all it took to break through her failed attempt of a rouse, "Fine, you could say that I'm a little worried."

"About Kaneki?" the blonde-haired teen guessed, continuing once she saw Ruby give her a single nod of affirmation. "Seriously, there are a lot of things to be worried about in the world, but the guy who can punt a beowolf's head off not being able to take care himself, isn't one of them."

"No, it's not that," the fifteen year old huntress-in-training began, letting out an exasperated sigh as she crossed her arms over chest. "Didn't you notice something about him change once Ozpin pulled that mask out?"

"Well, now that you mention it, he did seem to act a little more… what's the word I'm looking for here?" Yang began, mentally searching for the word that perfectly described what she saw in the young man at that moment, but she was never able to find it because not soon after she started searching, she heard Weiss say something that immediately got the two half-sisters' attention.

"Hey, you two," Weiss called out to the two of them suddenly, prompting the two half-sisters to turn towards the heiress of the Schnee fortune and found that she was holding her scroll in her hand. "Take a look at your scrolls, Ozpin has something to show us."

The two in question nodded and pulled out their scrolls as they were told, unsurprisingly finding a message from the headmaster himself in their inboxes. What really surprised them was when they went to go view the message and found a live video feed coming from what seemed to be the inside of a forest.

Confused, Ruby looked up from her scroll and over towards Ozpin, asking him, "What exactly is this."

"This," began, gesturing to the scroll in his hand, "is a live video feed of Mr. Kaneki's initiation."

"Okay then," Yang proceeded to ask, "so why exactly are you having us watch it?"

"The answer will be clear to you soon enough," Ozpin explained in a deadpan tone, "so please continue to watching the feed, I'm sure you all will find it quite interesting."

That's exactly what the two half-sisters proceeded to do and what they found was a familiar snowy-haired young man running through the forest, weaving through the trees in front of him with ease. They watched as he suddenly launched himself towards something that was just barely off-camera.

The camera angle changed as he jumped off-screen, revealing a pair of beowolves standing right next to each other. Then suddenly, a black blur flew past both of the beowolves, leaving the two wolves completely dumbfounded as the blur continued on past them like they were never there to begin with.

A second later, streams of black liquid erupted from their throats, forcing the two wolves to fall limp onto the ground and evaporate into nothingness soon afterwards.

"He works fast," Goodwitch noted in her usual emotionless tone, though Ozpin could tell that huntress was impressed by the young man's efficiency. "It makes me wonder why it took him so long to beat those other beowolves from last night."

"I asked him the same thing last night and he told me that the display he put up during their initial meeting was only a portion of his actual strength," Ozpin explained, usually emotionless tone holding a small amount of amusement. "I don't know about yourself, but I'm rather inclined to believe him."

"Really now?" Goodwitch asked him skeptically. "If having the ability to kill four beowolves in under three minutes with nothing but his bare hands is just a mere portion of what he can actually do, then I don't want to ever be in the same room with him when he unleashes his full strength on something."

"Funny," the headmaster began as he watched the black-clad young man kick the head off of a boarbatusk. "He told me the same thing last night."

* * *

**A loud cracking noise emanated from Kaneki's index finger as he pressed down onto it with his thumb, idly watching the headless body of what he assumed to be a boarbatusk disintegrate before him. Not having much prior knowledge on the creatures of Grimm, other than what the headmaster told him last night, he really couldn't be one-hundred percent sure that was what it was called. He really only called it that because it had the body of a boar and it definitely had the tusks, so the pieces definitely seemed to fit the name.**

Shrugging, the half ghoul with colorless hair pushed the thought of his mind and glanced all around him, trying to remember which way he had been heading earlier. The fight with the boarbatusk wasn't too strenuous nor was it very time consuming, but it did cause him to lose his bearings - as he had to spin to get enough energy into his kick to kill aforementioned Grimm in one hit - and he's read enough horror novels to know that would be more than enough for him to become lost in a forest like the one he was currently in.

It was definitely a good thing that he decided against straying too far away from the cliffs, because as of the moment, they were his only visible landmark that he could use to re-orient himself, since he was currently running under the assumption that they were directly to his south. Ozpin never said that they were facing north when they were up on that cliff, so as long as he kept believing that assumption, he could be running in the completely wrong direction and he'd be none the wiser.

_I'm going to have to find a way to figure out which way I'm going before I move any further,_ he thought to himself as he pondered ways to get that objective done.

There was always the option of using the position of the sun to gauge which way was east and west, and in turn, help him figure out what direction was north. Unfortunately for him, however, the sun was currently being hidden behind a thick blanket of gray clouds-clouds that had been threatening to overtake the sky for nearly the entire day and finally managed to do so at the most inopportune time.

There was always the option of looking for moss and seeing which side it was growing on. He knew that the saying "moss only grows facing north" was only a myth, but he also knew that there was some truth in that myth.

Moss, as it turns out, usually grew where the sun didn't hit to prevent itself from drying out, which varied depending on which side of the planet you lived. Live on the northern hemisphere of the planet and it would grow facing north, but live on the southern side and it would grow facing the south.

Last night, Ozpin pointed out their current location to him on a map and from what he could gather from the piece of paper, they were somewhere just above the middle of the planet. So, logically speaking, the moss should grow facing north or somewhere near there at the very least. There was always the chance that science from this world worked differently compared to the science of his home universe-which he wouldn't be too surprised in seeing after hearing Ozpin's explanation last night, but that was just a chance he was going to have to take. Barring his luck changing and a compass randomly falling from the sky, of course.

So, the artificially-made half ghoul studied the trunks of the trees surrounding him, taking note of where the moss was currently growing, making sure to look at several of them before concluding which direction to go, and when he did, he shot off in that direction.

As he ran, Kaneki silently thanked Hide as he ran because without him, the half ghoul would have absolutely no idea on how to gauge his direction without the help of a compass. An amused scoff left his lips when a mental image of the outdoor survival guide - the one his aforementioned best friend got him for his thirteenth birthday - flashed in his mind, he could even remember what Hide told him when he opened the present.

"... this will help keep you alive long enough for you to get rescued, or at the very least, keep you alive long enough for me to get out there and die with you!"

* * *

**Kaneki had no idea how much time he had spent running through the forest for, but he knew that it had to be somewhere around fifteen and twenty minutes by now. He subconsciously let out a tired sigh when he saw yet another creature of Grimm standing in his path.**

_This is really starting to get tedious,_ the snowy-haired half ghoul grumbled to himself mentally as he neared said Grimm. _How many does this make it now? Fifteen, twenty?_

Normally, he wouldn't have much of a problem with how easily he was killing the beings that decided to get in his way, but killing the same things over and over again, with very little difficulty, was starting to become really tedious.

_Well, at the very least it's not another beowolf or boarbatusk,_ the black-clad young man added when he got close enough to see the Grimm's finer details.

No, this time it was a much larger creature - one that probably stood at the combined height of two of the beowolves he dispatched previously - wearing the same color scheme as all of the other Grimm he saw today, but this time the animal the Grimm reminded him of a bear. The thing's size immediately made him assume that it was much stronger than the average beowolf or boarbatusk, but that really wasn't saying much since he was already so familiar with those two species that he was literally cutting through them like they were nothing at this point.

As he neared, the artificially-made half-ghoul ducked underneath the bear-like creature's extremely telegraphed attempt at taking his head off with its paw before spinning counter-clockwise on his right heel. He then promptly proceeded to slam his other heel into the side of the Grimm's head, a head that was covered with a bone mask that happened to crack upon impact.

Surprisingly enough, the kick didn't decapitate the creature like he expected it to. It instead sent the creature flying towards its immediate right and into the trees surrounding them. The combined force of his kick and the creature's weight spiraling through the air making it possible for its body to crash clean through the trunks of said trees as it slammed into them. It ended up slamming through several of them before finally breaking through the tree line and into a nearby clearing.

The half ghoul already knew that the odds of the thing surviving the attack were statistically very low, but that also meant that there was still a chance of it being still alive too. He was actually just about to walk over and confirm the kill, but a familiar black-and-white mass hurtling past him and slamming into a nearby tree made him stop dead in his tracks. He turned his head towards where the blur impacted and was surprised to find that it was the body of the very creature he was going to check on.

Kaneki took note of the rather large hole the grimm had in its chest as it evaporated into nothingness, which didn't exactly make it clear to him if his earlier attack killed it, but he, at the very least, knew that it was dead now.

After seeing what he just say, logic dictated that he probably should steer clear of the clearing in front of him and he was just about to do just that, right before he felt the ground underneath him shake. At first, it was faint, almost unnoticeable even, but then as second ticked by, the vibrations became more and more pronounced.

At that moment, every logical part of him wanted to turn away and run from the encroaching danger, but he didn't move an inch from where he stood. Not even when he saw the creature suddenly burst through the trees leading towards the clearing.

To make a long story short, it was a scorpion. An extremely big one that shared most of the same traits as the other Grimm he saw earlier, but with some changes to the original blueprint. It had the same black-and-white color scheme, but this time, the white heavily outweighing the black parts in both quantity and thickness in this instance. A feature that he took as a sign that he wasn't going to be able to punch through it like the the other Grimm he dispatched today. Truthfully, the only part of the scorpion that he could see wasn't covered with that white material was its legs and the bottom half of its claws, which probably meant that its lower-half wasn't covered with that white material and was probably the part he should aim for if he were to fight this thing.

The scorpion-like creature let out a low-pitched growl as it stared at him with its ten, glossy red eyes, opening and closing its claws in a vain attempt at intimidating him. In response, Kaneki simply stared back at it with his one visible eye, quizzically tilting his head to the side as he raised his right hand up to where it was level with his jaw. Naught twenty four hours ago, he was forced to face down the Reaper of the CCG - an enemy that was known throughout the ghoul community as the dove who had never lost a battle in his entire career, even against SS-Rated ghouls, which was the second highest ranking the organization had for ghouls - he would be damned if he let an over-sized scorpion scare him now.

_So, this is what they mean when they say be careful what you wish for, huh?_ he asked himself as dust and debris from the scorpion's entrance flew past him, cracking the index finger of the hand he raised earlier. _Well, Ozpin did say to destroy everything in my path without hesitation…_

The snowy-haired half ghoul took notice of something gold coming his way before he could finish that train of thought and jumped backwards, taking note of what it was in mid-air right as it slammed into ground in front of him.

It was the scorpion's stinger. A large one that seemed to be encased in gold for some reason. Bait for unsuspecting prey, maybe?

_I wonder what would have happened to me if I got stung by that thing,_ he mused to himself as he landed back onto the ground with little effort. _Obviously it would try to inject some sort of venom into me, but the question is what would that venom do to me if it was to get inside of me? _Then suddenly, the scorpion charged at him at a speed he didn't expect it to have with such a large body and tried to grab him with one of its claws.

_It's fast,_ Kaneki noted as he jumped over said claw with very little effort, prompting the scorpion to try and smack him aside with the back of the same claw, probably trying to hit him right as his feet were just about to touch the ground.

As gravity dictated, his feet did indeed touch the ground again, but the scorpion's claw didn't touch him at all upon landing.

That was because the moment his feet met with the ground again, he cartwheeled backwards and just barely made it out of the claw's reach. It was so close that he could even feel the claw go by his back as he planted both of his hands into the ground, halfway into the motion. Knowing that another attack was coming the moment he got out of the cartwheel, he once again jumped backwards the moment he finished and just barely missed getting grabbed by the scorpion's other claw, but unfortunately, he ended up slamming his back into the trunk of a nearby tree in the process.

The impact didn't necessarily hurt the artificially-made half ghoul, but it was definitely enough to remind him of his current surroundings. He was in a forest and that meant he was going to have to change his fighting style to accommodate the fact that there were a lot of obstacles around him that could impede his movement. Logically speaking, that should have meant the same thing for the gigantic scorpion in front of him, but from the way it just slammed through the trees earlier, it was probably safe to assume that it had no problem with fighting in their current position as it could always slam through the trees that got in its way.

Unfortunately, he didn't have that kind of luxury.

Kaneki knew that he had a power to snap a tree in half with a single strike, but what he didn't have was the time to actually break them apart and he was sure that the scorpion wasn't going to wait for him to do so. It was clear to him that he needed to get somewhere out in the open so he could fight effectively and so that's what he moved to do, breaking off into a sprint towards his immediate right, knowing that direction would lead him towards a vast expanse of land where no trees grew, or at the very least, that's what he hoped.

It was something he noticed back when he was standing at the edge of the cliff earlier, but didn't think much of it before Ozpin told him that his objective was somewhere to the north. He could see the clearing peek out from the endless expanse of greenery in that very direction and if he was indeed facing north at the time like he suspected, that's exactly where he was currently heading. Like everything else about his current situation, he couldn't be one-hundred percent sure he was heading in the right direction, but he was sure he would find out eventually.

* * *

Kaneki weaved through the trees as the scorpion Grimm continued to chase after him, simply crashing through the trees the half ghoul was putting so much effort in not running into.

_Just a little closer,_ he thought as he saw a dull sliver of sunlight starting to break through the treeline.

That sliver widened and widened as he ran towards it, eventually enveloping him completely as he broke out of from the dim confines of the forest and into the open.

The first thing that hit him when he ran out into the clearing wasn't what surrounded him, instead it was the slight contrast of lighting in this new area. It wasn't drastic, but it was definitely brighter out here in the open than it was underneath that canopy of trees, as one would probably expect.

The next thing that became apparent to him were his surroundings and they were interesting to say the least. Directly in front of him was a large, man-made structure built of solid-gray bricks that were arranged in a circular manner - half of which missing pieces or were just flat out destroyed - revealing the inside of said structure. Inside the structure, stood several thin stone pedestals. They looked to be all identical from where he stood, but one of them looked to be different than the others, and that was because that one in particular had something golden sitting on top of it.

_That must be the artifact, I'm supposed to collect,_ the snowy-haired half ghoul thought to himself as he turned back towards the forests, where he could hear the giant scorpion Grimm crashing through trees to get to him. _I'm definitely fast enough to get it before the scorpion gets here, but I should probably take care of it to make sure nothing-_

The scorpion crashed into the clearing before he could finish that train of thought, but finishing it was definitely the last thing on his mind, especially when the giant scorpion was charging straight at him with every intention of ripping him to shreds. No, he needed to set his thoughts onto a way of beating the Grimm in front of him.

Kaneki already knew that he would never be able to break through its armor with his fists alone, he could probably stun it with the resulting vibrations, but a part of him knew that was probably just hopeful thinking on his part. His kagune - the natural predatory organ of the ghoul that was composed entirely of the RC cells that flowed through his blood and the main reason why ghouls could only eat the flesh of humans and ghouls, as they were the only places the cells existed - could probably break through the armor, but it was the only trump card he had on him and using it so early into a battle would be a waste of what little energy he had on him.

A lick of beowolf blood wasn't going to be able to last both him and his kagune forever, after all, and he would need it if things were to get really dire. That, of course, wouldn't be a problem if he was able to non-lethally subdue the scorpion and devour it. But at the same time, using it when his opponent was ready for him to attack wasn't going to get him the opening he needed to properly subdue the creature before he ran out of energy. No, doing something like that would force him to try and smash through its defenses, and that could easily lead to him killing the scorpion by accident.

The snowy-haired half ghoul needed to wait for an opening and strike when it presented itself, or face the very real possibility of exhausting himself on just one enemy while there were probably plenty of others out in the forest waiting for him to show weakness.

Then suddenly, an idea popped into his head. It was an idea that would get the scorpion to let its guard long down enough for him to strike efficiently and that just happened to involved not moving while the scorpion charged straight at him.

As he expected, the scorpion tried to impale him with its stinger the moment once he got close enough. In response, Kaneki leaned slightly to his left and just barely avoided having his head torn off by the stinger, but even that close call was unable to break through the stoic expression he was wearing under his mask.

Seeing that its initial attack missed its mark, the Grimm pounced at the black-clad young man, aforementioned scorpion's right claw widening in an attempt to trap him inside of it, but he, of course, didn't just let that happen. No, that would make things look a little too easy for his liking. He needed to make sure that the scorpion thought of him as an actual threat, or at the very least piss it off, so that it would fight him until it knew he was dead.

That's why he jumped up over the claw right before it closed around him and towards the Grimm. He then proceeded to land directly in front of it, spin counter-clockwise on his left heel, and plant the heel of his other foot right in between the scorpion's smallest eyes.

The resulting impact resulted in a satisfying thud as the back of his foot slammed against the armor-like material covering the scorpion's body, doing so with enough force to make the gigantic creature slide backwards a centimeter or so, but that was about it. The material didn't crack in the slightest and it didn't even manage to stun the creature at all, but then again, it wasn't like he was expecting the attack to do so in the first place.

Nonetheless, the failed attack gave the Grimm more than enough time to rear its stinger back and send it hurtling towards him. Kaneki watched as the golden stinger travel towards his stomach and eventually bury itself deep inside his body, before eventually burrowing its way out clean through to the other side.

The artificially-made half ghoul couldn't say that the attack hurt him much, even though he could feel pain shooting throughout his body as the stinger ran clean through him. This happened to be the fifth or sixth time something like this has happened to him, so the feeling definitely wasn't anything foreign to him anymore.

_Am I gaining a tolerance to getting impaled through the stomach?_ he asked himself with a small amount of amusement as the scorpion lifted him high up into the air and flung him somewhere off towards his right.

To say that his landing was less than graceful would be a major understatement.

The black-clad young man slammed into the ground and skidded along it like a rock skipping across the surface of a lake, stopping only when he slammed right into a nearby stone pillar that had been toppled over on its side at some point in time. Kaneki could feel blood pooling in his mouth as his body began to repair itself with what little RC cells he had left in him, feeling aforementioned cells go to work repairing his scrambled organs and ripped muscle tissue. It wasn't the most pleasant feeling in the world, but it was definitely better than the feeling he was forced to experience before it.

Knowing that he couldn't let the scorpion Grimm think he was dead and leave him alone, the half ghoul pushed himself up off the ground. His legs were unsteady underneath him and he couldn't even stand up straight without swaying back and forth in place, but he was standing and the hole in his stomach was more-or-less gone.

One of his black-tipped hands found its way up to the zipper of his mask - the one that separated the upper and lower jaw of his toothy mask's gum-less grin - and unzipped it, revealing his actual mouth underneath. A large shadow overcoming him as he spat out the blood in his mouth, knowing exactly what it was, he prepared himself to begin the next part of his plan.

Glancing up towards where the shadow was coming from with his one visible eye, Kaneki saw the scorpion once again widening its claws a couple of meters away from him, but long before it could even think about striking at his person, he pushed his kagune up to the surface.

Normally, his kagune would simply slide out from the small of his back with little to no effort, but this time was different for some reason or the other. No, this time the natural predatory organ erupted from the small of his back with so much force that it caused him buck his hips forwards. It didn't take a lot of time for him to realize it happened.

There were exactly, eight tentacles coming from his back and when he first began his life as a half-ghoul, Kaneki could only ever manage to bring three of his kagune out to the surface at a time. That number turned into four after his time with Yamori and during the raid on Dr. Kanou's lab, he managed to get six to come out. Having eight was a rather new experience for him, but then again, the first time he ever used eight was less than a day ago during his fight with Arima, so it made sense that his body was still trying to adjust to having all of them come out at once.

Another thing that he noticed was off with his kagune, other than the number of them, was its color. The scaly tentacles no longer shone their usual deep crimson color. No, they were now jet black in appearance.

The snowy-haired half ghoul, of course, thought that sudden change in appearance was strange, but he pushed the thought out of his mind, knowing that he couldn't allow it to occupy space there, since there was still a giant scorpion leering over him.

Knowing that it was going to take the scorpion a second to figure out what was going on, the moment his kagune was completely out of his body, the artificially-made half ghoul sent all eight tentacles towards the one part of the Grimm's body that wasn't covered with that bone-white material.

Its eyes. He stabbed them into its eyes.

A small smile crept its way onto his lips the moment they punched clean through eight of its ten eyes, leaving only the smallest pair of eyes in the middle unharmed.

"You know, I once read that despite having more than one pair of the eyes, scorpions have really bad eyesight..." Kaneki began as his head lolled forward, making it so that his face was hidden behind his snow-white bangs, "... why don't we **see** what happens when we take some of those eyes out of the equation?" A broken laugh escaped from his mouth as he asked, "Would that be okay with you?"

Once all eight tentacles were out of their respective eye, the black-clad young man once again cracked his index finger under his thumb and looked straight into the scorpion's two remaining eyes with his one visible one, and at that exact moment his kakugan took it over and caused said eye to change in appearance completely.

The eye's sclera turned jet-black and it pupil shone a brilliant crimson.

Kaneki didn't know if the creatures of Grimm possessed emotions, but if they did, he was certain that the scorpion would be feeling something akin to fear at this exact moment. At the sight of it, a morbid chuckle escaped from his mouth while that small smile from earlier became a full-blown grin that spanned ear-to-ear.

Tilting his head to the side as he added in a tone filled with amusement, "**Sorry, no pun intended there.**"

The gigantic scorpion let out a bloodcurdling shriek of either pain or anger as he said that, and immediately tried to grab him with its right claw. The artificially-made half ghoul scoffed in response and simply flipped over said claw, rotating in a counterclockwise fashion in mid-air. He made sure that his body was nearly parallel to the ground before he planted the four kagune on his left side into it, attempting to catch himself with them in mid-air.

His kagune bent as it bore all of the energy from the flip, bearing a distinct resemblance to a metal spring being bent in half as he slowed to a stop. And a lot like when one released said spring from their grip, he swung back in the opposite direction and slammed his four, remaining tentacles right into the joint holding the scorpion's claw to its body.

His kagune didn't cut clean through them. It did manage to get through the limb, but it didn't do so without encountering some resistance.

Kaneki found that it was a lot like trying to cut clean through concrete or glass. There was absolutely no way someone would be able to cut clean through either without a tool that was specifically meant for the task and if someone tried to, it would simply crumble apart into tiny pieces.

That was what happened to the claw of the scorpion-Grimm.

It cracked, gave way, shattered, and its blood shot out of it like a geyser. Watching it as it writhed in pain was definitely a grisly sight to behold. One that he thoroughly enjoyed.

The Grimm let out another shrill of pain as it tried to grab him with its claw yet again. Of course, using the one that wasn't completely destroyed, but unfortunately for it, the aim was a little off.

Instead of going for Kaneki's torso like last time, it went for his head, probably hoping that the attack would catch him off guard long enough for it latch onto his head and rip it off.

In all actuality, the snowy-haired half ghoul simply ducked underneath the attack and used his kagune to deliver a devastating uppercut to the joint connecting the claw to the rest of its body, shattering the appendage in a fashion similar to the one prior to it. But unlike last time, the attack's momentum carried him upwards instead of downward, and that's exactly the direction he went.

Jumping into the air after aforementioned uppercut, Kaneki extended all eight of his kagune to his sides and sent their razor sharp tips into the scorpion's exposed legs. The attack forming large enough holes in said legs that they actually went limp not soon afterwards and caused the creature to fall onto its underbelly with a loud thud.

The mask-wearing young man couldn't stop himself from smiling at the sight before him.

_My, my... what a beautiful sight,_ Kaneki mused as he stared at the motionless form of the Grimm before him.

The way that its body was still moving up and down slightly told him that it was still alive, despite all of the punishment it had taken up to this point, but for some reason, he had the strangest feeling that wasn't going to last for very long.

Knowing that he needed to start before the Grimm bled out, the snowy-haired half ghoul positioned his kagune underneath the scorpion's body, hardened them and flipped himself backwards. The force created between the hardened RC cells of his kagune and the ground created enough energy to levy the creature's massive body up a few feet. More than enough room for him to shoot towards the gap, prop its motionless body up with his tentacles and start tearing at the scorpion's softer underbelly. Having to ignore the disgusting taste that was filling his mouth as he shoveled the Grimm's flesh into his mouth.

The young half ghoul continued to eat long after his hunger was satiated, only stopping when the Grimm finally disintegrated into the air around him, leaving him kneeling in an open field with the scorpion's blood covering from head to toe, his kagune disappearing with his meal.

For a while, Kaneki simply looked up at the cloud-covered sky with his mouth open slightly as yet another fit of madness subsided slowly inside of him. Eventually being shook from his stupor by something light and cold landing on his shoulder. He turned his head towards where it came from slowly, half-expecting to find a claw resting on his shoulder, but instead found absolutely nothing there.

_Looks like it's raining,_ Kaneki thought to himself when he felt something cold and wet land onto the skin around his one exposed eye.

Little by little, more and more droplets fell from the sky. The rain becoming a full-blown downpour as he forced himself back up to his feet, the still wet blood from his battle washing off of him as he made his way towards the stone pedestal that he saw inside the temple earlier.

The golden object standing on said pedestal became clearer and clearer to him as he neared, but he didn't completely recognize what it was until he was standing directly in front of it.

It was a golden chess piece. A pawn to be exact.

Kaneki felt a bitter smile crawl onto his lips as he scoffed, thinking to himself, _Hm, how fitting._

Just then, a loud series of howls erupted from the treeline behind him. In response, he glanced over his shoulder and found a group of what looked like ten beowolves emerging from the forest, and begin edging towards him warily.

_They must have heard all that commotion and decided to follow,_ the black-clad young man mused to himself before pocketing the golden chess piece, allowing four of his kagune to slip out from the small of his back as he turned and approached the approaching Grimm. _Hm, what a bother..._

As he approached the beings who probably came to try and rip him to shreds, he noticed something that was drilled into the side of a nearby tree.

_A camera,_ the half ghoul noted to himself as he used on his kagune to impale a beowolf that tried to pounce on him, flinging it off of it not a second later. _It's probably one of the ones Ozpin told him about last night. _Another crack escaped from his finger as he snapped it with his thumb.

_Hm, I wonder what the others think about all of this? _He asked himself as the tips of two of his kagune met with the flesh of two more beowolves. _No, never mind, that's pretty obvious, _a troubled smirk crept onto his lips as he mentally added, _I wonder how Ozpin plans to explain this entire situation to them? This was his plan after all..._

**-Chapter End-**

I really don't have anything other to say. Just leave me alone. I posted this late and I'm tired. Leave me alone...


	3. Chapter 3: Keepsake Habits

Yo, welcome to the first part of the TG:R two-year anniversary rewrite! So, as you probably already know, in celebration of two years of writing for this fic, I've decided to rewrite every chapter that hasn't been touched by my beta-reader, FineChyna, or re-written by me.

So, of course, they're all mainly going to be

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

Have the redundancy of these things hit you yet? Well, they hit me a long time ago.

**-Chapter 3: Keepsake Habits-**

_I wonder how much longer it's going to take for them before they ask about what just happened?_ Kaneki mused to himself as he and the other six who were present for his initiation made their way back to Beacon, a blanket of complete silence covering them almost the entire trip back.

Normally, the snowy-haired half ghoul wouldn't have saw the silence as much of a problem, but he knew exactly what this silence meant and it, of course, made him uncomfortable. This silence meant that, like a stray dog found in an alley, the people surrounding him were wary of what he was going to do next.

One could tell by just looking at the way some of them, mainly Blake and Ruby, were trying to keep their distance from him without making it look like they were.

_At least they're trying to be subtle about it,_ Kaneki thought to himself as he glanced over towards Weiss and Ms. Goodwitch, who were both actively trying to keep themselves away from him in a way that lacked any sort of subtlety.

Kaneki couldn't say that he blamed them for being so wary of him. Truthfully, he would have been more concerned if they were completely fine with what they just saw. That's why he was so worried about Yang in particular, who was currently walking step by step with him as if nothing happened in the first place.

Ozpin was walking next to him as well, but the silver-haired headmaster didn't have a reason to be wary of him since he was already made aware about his ghoul abilities before everything went down.

Yang, on the other hand, didn't. So, why didn't she seem the least bit concerned with what he could do next? She couldn't have overheard the conversation between he and Ozpin last night and there was no way she could have seen something like this beforehand, so her presence by his side confused the half ghoul greatly.

_Maybe she's just pretending to not be afraid of me?_ The half ghoul mused curiously as he glanced over at the blonde.

_No, she would have to be a really good actor to walk next to someone she's afraid of without showing any signs of fear or discomfort,_ he shook his head as he shot down that possibility, _but then again, we really don't know each other that well, so there's always the chance that's the case—_

"There something wrong, short-stuff?" the sound of Yang's voice broke him from his musings, which he took as a definite sign of her noticing him glancing her way.

"No, nothing's wrong," the worldly-foreigner replied as he returned his eyes back to the path before him. "I was just wondering why none of you have said anything yet."

The already tense atmosphere that hovered over them seemed to become heavier after he said those words, forming a blanket of silence that completely drowned out the sound of rain falling all around them.

Kaneki would be lying if he said that he didn't expect something like that to happen when he forced those words from his mouth, but he knew that those words needed to be said if he wanted this situation to not come back to haunt him later. He wasn't about to let himself make the same mistake as he did last time something like this happened.

Back during his time in _his_ world, as he and his group of ghouls were limping back home after their raid of Kanou's lab, the half ghoul could feel a question lingering in the air the entire time. He was fairly sure that his comrades had felt it too, but no one pointed it out and so, nothing was resolved and a seed of doubt had been sown within his head.

What resulted afterwards was a span of time where he did nothing but mope around the house they all shared and question his own actions. As he wallowed about in disdain for himself and what he had turned into, a part of him even began to believe that what he did to Banjou had made them all afraid of him, even though most of them harbored no such feelings towards him.

In the end, he found out that they were actually very worried about him and his well-being, but they never said anything because they thought that it would be best for him to work through his problems on his own. They weren't wrong to assume that would be the best way to handle the situation, as that's how he solved up until that point, but he wouldn't deny that to have their reassurances would have helped him immensely.

During that time, his group only managed to power through and remain close because of how close they were to one another. Over time, they learned to trust him and that helped them to believe that he would never do anything to get them hurt unnecessarily-a luxury he quite obviously didn't have right now.

Nearly everyone around him had absolutely no idea what he was or what he was going to do next, and people tended to fear what they knew, but didn't quite understand. So, it became clear to Kaneki what he needed to do next.

Ken needed to cut the head off this snake now, before it turned into something much bigger than it actually was. He couldn't wait another second for Ozpin to make his move as they had planned back in his office, and so, that's exactly what the half ghoul was going to do.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Ruby asked, using a tone that didn't quite convince him of her ignorance at all.

_They're still trying to act like they don't know anything, huh?_ he noted as he glanced at the red-clad teen, who stood a few meters behind where Yang stood. _That means I was right to assume that they still don't know about what Ozpin told me the other night, I guess I'm going to have to enlighten them then._

Recognizing that this wasn't the type of conversation they could have while simply walking through the forest, the half ghoul stopped dead in his tracks and turned his head to face the six trailing behind him–his back still to them.

"You don't have to pretend that you don't know anything," he told them all, his voice emotionless as usual, prompting everyone else in the group to stop dead in their tracks as well. "I already know that you saw me fight that grimm earlier, and what I did to it after I won, so if you have something to say…" A loud cracking noise ran through the air as he tacked on, "...I'd greatly appreciate it if you said what you need to now before this turns into something bigger than it actually is."

A whole minute passed before one of them gathered up enough resolve to say something back to him, and that someone just happened to be one Weiss Schnee.

"'Make it bigger than it actually is'?" the heir of the Schnee fortune repeated his words, her tone both incredulous and outraged. "How else are we supposed to react when we see you shoot tentacles out from your back and then proceed to _literally_ tear into a deathstalker?"

Kaneki probably should have expected an outburst like that when he asked the question. It probably would have made him feel less guilty about the whole situation, though he really didn't know why he felt that way in the first place.

Nothing about what he did was inherently wrong. All he did was withhold information they never asked for in the first place with and stick to the plan _their_ headmaster had come up with. By all rights, he had plenty of reason to not feel at all guilty, but there was just something about the way Weiss spoke that made those feelings well up inside of him.

"Did you seriously expect everything to be fine and dandy after what you did?" the enraged heiress demanded as she rushed up to him, grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, turned him around so that he was facing her face-to-face, and jabbed her bony finger into his chest accusingly. "Of course we were going to have questions that we'd want to ask you!" she exclaimed while continuously jabbing aforementioned finger into him. "Who wouldn't after witnessing something that shouldn't have been humanly possible?!"

As the girl went about her verbal onslaught, his pride screamed at him to say something back to defend himself, but despite it, he made no move to defend himself from the tongue-lashing he was receiving. He just did as he always did, stand there and take it.

"Ask them then," the half ghoul stated as he reached up, gently wrapped his hand around hers, and pulled down so that her finger was no longer digging its way into his chest. "I already told you to speak up if you had something to say, so just go ahead and ask already."

The heiress kept her face straight as she stared up at him, but for a split second, he could see a hint of uncertainty lying inside those pale blue pools, before they narrowed and filled back up with a new-found resolution. "Fine then, what exactly are you?"

"From what I saw, you're clearly not human and I've never seen a faunus capable of doing something…well, something like what you did to that deathstalker," Weiss explained to him before then repeating an altered form of her original question. "So, my question is if you're not either of those things, what exactly are you?"

_Huh, that's actually a pretty good question,_ Kaneki thought to himself as he tilted his head up towards the greyed, cloud-filled sky above him. _What exactly am I?_

It was a question that he asked himself countless of times up until this point and truth be told, he still hasn't found an answer that he was actually happy with. He was well aware of the fact that, technically, he was a half ghoul–a being that was both human _and_ ghoul, but that fact simply never fully resonated with him for some reason.

Kaneki would always gravitate more towards one side of the spectrum than the other. There was a brief time before his kidnapping where he started to accept his half-ghoul nature, but that, of course, didn't last very long before he was pushed headlong into the ghoul side.

Admittedly, the snowy-haired young man probably wouldn't have known the reason behind this line of thinking before his fight with Arima and he still didn't quite know after it, but he, at the very least, was starting to acknowledge the fact that his lack of acceptance was a problem. The first step to changing any problem was acknowledging it as one, after all.

"A half-ghoul," Ken stated in a voice that came out sounding as soft as a whisper to him, despite knowing that he used a voice that was loud enough for everyone present to hear. "The proper term for what I am would be half-ghoul, or at least, that's what people from where I come from would call someone like me."

Less than a day ago, Kaneki found himself staring down the strongest opponent he would ever have to face in his life, having to do so while surrounded by the mutilated corpses of his slain allies. That sight was indisputably the most terrifying thing he's ever had the pleasure of seeing and that was saying something, since he's seen his fingers and toes get cut off just to watch them grow back a few minutes later before.

Using that logic, something as mundane as this shouldn't have scared him as much at all.

So, why was he so afraid of the confused stares the five people standing in front of him were giving him? It wasn't the overwhelming fear he felt during either of those traumatic moments, it probably wasn't even an inkling in comparison, but it was still definitely there.

"Excuse me, Mr. Kaneki," Kaneki heard Ozpin say right before he placed a gloved hand onto his shoulder, prompting him to look over at the man. "If I may, I'd like to be the one to explain this to them, so, for now, I'd like you to go back and wait for us in my office."

It took a few moments for the words to register in the half ghoul's head, but when they did, he gave the headmaster a nod and turned to start walking back to the academy.

Kaneki did so mainly because he could see the logic behind the words. The five others would've never spoke as freely about the situation if he was standing there listening the entire time, but they would if they were talking to someone they could trust like Ozpin, and the headmaster could use that trust to make sure that they knew he posed no real threat to them or anyone at the academy.

Kaneki did, however, have to admit that even though there was sound logic behind Ozpin's decision to send him back, the fact that he had to rely on someone he barely even knew to determine his fate did irritate him slightly, but that was probably to be expected out of someone like him.

There was the chance that Ozpin was only using this as an opportunity to plan against him, but the bespectacled man didn't seem like the type of person who would try and pull something like that off. Then again, the black-clad young man didn't look like he could punch through solid concrete beams either, but he could do, so maybe he was right to be paranoid.

Either way, the half ghoul walked on the path back to Beacon without uttering a word, having to force himself to not stop and look back the entire way.

* * *

**Kaneki let out a sigh as he stared out the large window in front of him, his face harboring the same blank expression that he always had plastered on his face. He could see the entirety of Beacon Academy from where he stood, which was truly a sight to behold from up this high, but even the picturesque view before him wasn't enough to stop his mind from wandering back to the six individuals currently discussing what happened during his initiation. **

As he stared out through the glass in front of him, Ken's dull eyes took note of the barely visible sight of his reflection staring back at him on its surface, and what he saw, he could only describe with one word: ragged.

The clothes he wore were torn and battered, which made them look like they were going to fall apart and off of him at any moment. Something that confused him greatly since his clothes would usually regenerate with whatever injuries they came with thanks to his RC cells. And as if to add insult to injury, his reflection reminded him of the fact that his shirt had a giant hole in it from when he had let that giant scorpion grimm, or deathstalker, as Weiss had called it, impale him through the stomach, effectively leaving the entirety of his abdomen open for the world to see, making the black piece of fabric completely useless as a piece of clothing.

Overall though, the snowy-haired half ghoul's personal appearance still looked pretty acceptable, despite having been thrown on the ground like he was a rock being skipped across the surface of a pond, but then again, he probably could've been thrown into a woodchipper and still look fine thanks to his extraordinary healing abilities. If he had to come up with one idiosyncrasy in the reflection that was staring back at him, however, he would have to say that his hair looked slightly messier than it usually did, but that was probably to be expected after everything that's happened.

"When did I become so self-conscious about my appearance?" Kaneki muttered that question to himself in a low, self-deprecatory manner, all the while knowing that he was just using the topic as a distraction from what _really_ plagued his head and according to the giant clock hands that were right outside the window he was standing in front of, it distracted him for a total span of about two minutes, which, incidentally enough, was right around the amount of time he expected it to.

The half ghoul let out yet another sigh as he reached up and ran a hand through his messy white hair. To say that he hated everything about his current situation would've been an understatement, but if he had to single out a single aspect that he hated the most, it was all the waiting he had to do.

Every second that passed made him feel even more helpless, and he absolutely hated feeling that way. It was a feeling that he had become way too acquainted with over the nineteen years he's been alive, so he would have more than enough experience to know when a situation was making him feel such a way and as of this moment, he was feeling it in spades.

Once again, the nineteen year old was forced to stand on the sidelines and watch the situation unfold around him, completely unable to change anything as someone came to his rescue.

_Why do I even feel like this in the first place?_ the young man asked himself as he pressed his forehead onto the cool glass of the window before him. _It's not like my future here completely depends on team RWBY and Goodwitch accepting me._

Ozpin wanted him in Beacon Academy, that was one of the only things he knew to be absolutely one-hundred percent fact in his current situation, and despite only knowing the man for about twenty-four hours, Kaneki doubted that the headmaster was just going to let an opportunity like himself get away that easily.

_I guess Touka was right..._ Kaneki mused offhandedly, a self-deprecating chuckle escaping from him at the sudden realization, _...even after everything I've been through…even after all of the strength I've acquired... I still can't even manage to protect myself._

The half ghoul shook his head in an attempt to clear his head of such thoughts. There were much more pressing issues for him to worry about, or to be more specific, he had to deal with a certain habit of his.

When faced with times of great uncertainty, people tended to do things that they were familiar with to create the illusion of stability, and more often than not, those things tended to be the habits they picked up along the way to the point of change. It didn't have to be big or small, prevalent or unnoticeable, physical or mental, every sentient being in existence had at least one habit to their name and, honestly, he found it just a little funny that those tiny, insignificant things that no one ever thought twice about could eventually become the one thing that kept people grounded in uncertain, unshaky times.

For the sake of his own pride alone, Kaneki would've liked to say that he was different from such people and that he could keep himself grounded without employing such trivial methods, but truth be told, he was no different than any of those people. Actually, he was probably the best example of one of those people. The fact that he just cracked his finger without him even noticing was testament of that fact.

It was funny. He never meant for the finger bre—cracking to become a habit of his, he really only started doing it because he thought it would be a good way to mock Yamori after he got out of that damned chair, but now, he could barely even go a few seconds without doing it at least once. Mainly because there were times where it felt like his fingers were gone–just no longer there on his hand and the pain doing it caused, no matter how little it affected him after everything he's had to go through, helped to remind him that they were still there.

In retrospect, Ken probably should've been a bit more worried about the fact that he's gotten so used to a habit he picked up from someone who tortured him and entailed him snapping his own fingers into two, but compared to some of his other habits? Something that simple was last thing he was worried about. No, the habit he was referring to earlier was one he didn't learn about only until recently.

By definition, a habit was defined as something the subconscious mind would do frequently without any manual input, so, technically, a habit didn't have to be a physical action like his finger-breaking. It could be the way someone spoke, or something as abstract as a certain way of looking at things. If the person did it frequently without any manual input on their part, it could be considered to be a habit by definition.

That, of course meant that his current mentality–the one that made Kaneki so willingly sacrifice himself for others–was by definition a habit-one that he would need to rectify in the days to come. He and Ozpin hadn't talked much about his future at Beacon Academy after he was finished with the initiation, but the man did make mention of him having to join a team of other hunters-in-training as to not draw attention from the other students and a mentality like that one wouldn't serve his future team well by any means.

If a group of people were to be successful as a team, it needed things like cooperation, an uncompromising confidence in one another, and a willingness to trust someone with any task that comes along. Those were three things that were foreign to people who often self-sacrificed themselves. Clearly, he needed to get rid of it before it came back and bit him in the ass.

Now, the half ghoul wasn't delusional. He knew that he wasn't going to be able to change a mentality that's developed in him over the entirety of his lifespan, but it was a widely accepted fact by society that the best way to start to break free from a habit–especially one that was more detrimental to the owner's well-being like his own–was acknowledging that it was actually a problem.

Ironically enough, in this situation, his decision to make such a change could be considered a self-sacrifice in on itself. He would have to give up one of the things about himself that stayed consistent throughout his the years, just for some people he hadn't even been introduced to yet.

Another self-deprecating chuckle left his mouth as he removed his forehead from the glass and tilted his head back, giving him a good look at the giant gears that turned up in the ceiling above him. He stared at them–doing so as if the solution to all of his problems was up there as well, but it, of course, wasn't there at all.

The young man remained in that position, staring up at the ceiling for several minutes, only stopping when he heard the familiar sound of the elevator behind him opening up. In response to it, he breathed in deeply and breathed out the same amount, before then turning his body to face it, watching in silent anticipation as its metal doors opened up to reveal a group of familiar faces, all of which staring right at him.

For a moment, the half ghoul contemplated forcing a smile up onto his lips, but decided against it when he realized that such an action could probably be seen as anything but reassuring to them. It occurred to him that it would be much more reassuring for them to see that he was taking the situation just as seriously as they did, so that's exactly what he did.

Ozpin was the first person to step out of the elevator and into the office, but given the situation they currently found themselves in, that was probably to be expected. He made his way over to about halfway between the elevator and the desk, all the while wearing that same stoic expression he always seemed to wear. The headmaster looked calm on the outside, but months of having to read the facial expressions of other ghouls told Ken that there was something else brewing under his ever-blank face–whatever it was.

The next person to come out out was Ms. Goodwitch, also not surprising considering his status, wearing the same stern expression he assumed she always wore as she strode out of the elevator and to her usual spot next to Ozpin. Kaneki didn't fail to take note of the air of dissatisfaction that hovered around her and, given the circumstances, it was pretty easy to figure out as to why that was.

Next, came the four members of team RWBY and, despite the fact that their expressions were much easier to read when compared to those of the prior two, he still found the act to be rather difficult. Ruby being by far the easiest of the four to read–something he found to be quite funny, as she looked like she was actively trying to conceal her emotions. Weiss, on the other hand, was probably the hardest of the four to figure out, which only made sense to him, since she _was_ the daughter of one of the the richest men in all of Remnant and was most likely trained to do so from a young age. Blake and Yang were both somewhere in between those two extremes, the prior being much harder to read than the latter in his opinion, but latter looked like she was barely even trying so he debated even counting her in the discussion.

Yet, despite the differing degrees of difficulty separating them all, Kaneki was able to pinpoint the one thing that connected the six of them all pretty easily: they were all clearly hiding something from him.

"So…" he began when he saw that everyone found somewhere they wanted to stand, his voice remaining completely void of emotion as he spoke, "...what happens now?"

The faint sound of someone taking in a deep breath reached the half ghoul's ears, which was the telltale sign that person was about to say something, so he turned his head to see who the perpetrator was. Upon turning his head towards it, he found that the person who was preparing to speak was, unsurprisingly, the headmaster himself.

"As of right now, we go along with the plan that the two of us came up with last night," Ozpin stated in his usual business-like manner.

"So, does that mean that it's safe for me to assume that everyone in this room is okay with idea of me staying here at Beacon?" the question wasn't directed towards just Ozpin, but everyone else currently standing in the room.

"Well, I wouldn't say everybody…" Ruby interjected suddenly and awkwardly while pushing the tips of her index fingers together, which immediately drew the half-ghoul's attention onto her.

_So, it's as I thought,_ Kaneki thought to himself as he let out a quiet sigh of exasperation, breaking the middle bone of his index finger before he continued to speak to himself mentally, _their opinions on the situation are indeed varied._

It would've been naive of him to believe that they would all share the same opinion on the situation given the fact that, at least from what he's seen up until now, the people currently standing before him were all very different from one another personality wise, which obviously meant that their opinions were going to differ most of the time.

For example, Kaneki could see both Ruby and Yang trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but on the other hand, he couldn't see either Weiss or Goodwitch even entertaining the possibility without Ozpin giving them his word that he wasn't a threat to anyone ast Beacon beforehand.

"Well, if that's the case, then can all the people opposed to the idea of me attending Beacon please step forward and tell me what's on their mind?" Kaneki asked them four as he unconsciously lowered his eyes down so that the only thing he was able to see was the ground. "As I told you all earlier, I'd rather not—"

"Oh, could you please stop being so dramatic?" Weiss cut him off suddenly, her words dripping with irritation as they escaped her mouth. The half ghoul's blank slate eyes immediately snapped onto the heiress of the Schnee fortune, who continued speaking when she saw that she had his attention, "So, what if some of us aren't very comfortable with the idea of you staying at Beacon?" She then crossed her arms over her chest and averted her eyes from his. "Heck, I was practically the only one trying to convince Ozpin that letting you stay was a bad idea, but…" she trailed off as she took a deep breath in through her nostrils, "...but even I know that there are just some things that we can't change–no matter how hard we try, or how uncomfortable it makes us."

"Yeah, Weiss is right," Blake commented suddenly, picking up her teammate's momentum with an almost practiced ease. "At this point, what we think about this situation and what you are really doesn't matter."

"Exactly, so what if you're an inhuman creature who survives off the flesh of Grimm and other people?" Yang asked him as she made her way over to him, slapping him on the shoulder playfully, before then shaking him with said hand lightly. "I mean, you clearly don't want to hurt us since you could've taken us all out when none of us were aware of what you could do, so that has to mean you're on our side, right?"

The sudden change in the conversation's tone had left Ken utterly speechless, but that was probably to be expected given the fact that he carried around a heavy atmosphere nearly everywhere he went. Situations like this became so few and far between for him that it actually made it difficult for him to adjust when the tone changed so suddenly.

_How can she say something like that so lightly?_ the half ghoul asked himself as he stared at the girl standing before him with wide eyes and mouth slightly agape, and just for a moment, he could've sworn that he had seen Hide in her visage.

Everything…everything that was happening reminded Kaneki of the last time he saw his blonde-haired best friend: down in those sewers, after his encounter with the CCG investigator, Amon Koutarou. He could vividly remember not being able to think straight due to the previous activation of his kakuja, and how shocked he was to see Hide standing there with the same goofy smile gracing his face as if nothing was wrong. At first, he thought that it was nothing more than a hallucination brought upon by his broken mind and didn't know if the person standing before him back then was actually real or not, but whatever it turned out being, there was no doubt that after it appeared, it said something that rocked him to the core.

"_I already knew, man! Who cares about that, let's just go home already."_

Those words... They were words that were uttered far too casually for his liking, but they still shook Ken so hard that it was able clear his head for long enough for him to tell Hide to run away, before something happened to him.

Whatever happened afterwards was completely lost to the half ghoul, but deep down, he knew that he did something to Hide during that duration of time where his memory had failed him—a conclusion that he easily came to when he found that he could taste blood in his mouth after he eventually returned to a right state of mind, and since it tasted sweet, he could only assume that it had belonged to a human and not a ghoul. He didn't know if it had belonged to Hide, but he was sure that whatever injury he inflicted on his friend wasn't serious enough to kill him because there wasn't a corpse anywhere near him, there wasn't even a pool of blood. Then again, that easily could've been wishful thinking on his part.

"Yo, short-stuff, you alright?" Kaneki heard Yang call out to him as a hand suddenly waved itself in front of his face, probably in an attempt to gain his attention, effectively ripping him away from his thoughts and back to reality in less than an instant.

"Yeah, I'm fine," the half ghoul replied almost reflexively, his voice remaining smooth throughout, despite having been pulled out from very distressing thoughts less than two seconds ago. "I just spaced out a little there."

"You seemed to do that quite often, don't you?" Blake commented offhandedly, very clearly not buying it. "Space out, I mean."

The disheveled young man let out an amused scoff and replied in a much lighter tone, a sheepish smile parting his lips into two as he did so, "Trust me, you don't even know the half of it."

The change in his tone didn't go unnoticed by the other occupants of the room as they all started to display to him rather obvious signs of relief.

"Well, now that all of that's settled," Ozpin interjected suddenly, drawing the attention of everyone in the room onto him immediately. "I'd like to explain to Mr. Kaneki here, what exactly we were agreed upon out in that forest."

"Wait, wouldn't he already know since it was the plan the two of you came up with in the first place?" team RWBY's resident bookworm asked the headmaster curiously, clearly confused.

"Yes and no," Ozpin began to explain, "what the two of us came up with last night was more or less just the framework of the actual plan, because of time constraints and some other obstacles that I needed to clear before we could proceed, we couldn't discuss things in any further detail."

"So, I'm assuming that means our approval was the last hurdle for you to clear, right?" the girl assumed, which was as close to spot on as she could get given the lack of context on the situation she actually had.

"Once again, the answer to that question is yes and no," answered Ozpin, "while there was no doubt that team RWBY was the best option for Mr. Kaneki in terms of teams for him to be assigned to, I did have other options in mind just in case the four of you rejected the idea, which I doubted given the personalities of you four. Also, I still needed to explain some other more minor things to him like his class schedule and such."

"Oh," Blake stated, seemingly satisfied with that answer, nodding her head in affirmation soon afterwards.

_Hm, I wonder why he's being so open to them about his intentions?_ Kaneki noted as he watched the exchange between the two unfold in front of him with slightly narrowed eyes. _Did they make him agree to being completely transparent with them or something?_

"Now, Mr. Kaneki, shall we?" the headmaster asked him suddenly.

"Yeah," the newest student of Beacon in question stated simply, before giving his own nod in response.

"Very well, then let's begin with where you'll be staying…"

* * *

**Kaneki's eyebrow twitched in annoyance as he felt the curious eyes of his new classmates scan him up and down, making him feel like he was some sort of unknown creature from outer space, and the school uniform that Ozpin provided him didn't help out in that regard. He felt like a wolf in sheep's clothing, but unlike the old Greek–though most experts would say that it first originated from the Bible nowadays–story, the sheep knew him to be a threat and were sizing him up to gauge how much of one he was. **

The teacher of the class, a green-haired man that went by the name of Bartholomew Oobleck, was busy explaining the situation to aforementioned students, and new classmates, while moving around like a man who had downed several cups of espresso in a one minute sitting–something that the half ghoul wouldn't put past the man given how he wreaked of nothing but coffee, though again, that wasn't something Kaneki necessarily minded. Coffee was one of the few things both humans and ghouls could consume.

_Now that I think about it, it's been far too long since I've had some coffee,_ the ghoul in student's clothing thought to himself as he silently shifted where he stood. _Note to self, remember to make a stop by Ozpin's office and ask for some supplies once classes are over._

"Now, do any of you have any questions that you would like to ask Mr. Kaneki before we continue?" Oobleck asked once he reached the end of his rather…energetic explanation, prompting a few seconds of silence from the rest of the students. "No?" Unlike the history professor, the young man in question fully expected the silence, as Oobleck summarized the backstory Ozpin had made up for him quite thoroughly. "Then, Mr. Kaneki, if you would please take that seat near Ms. Scarlatina over there," the caffeine-filled professor instructed, pointing an index finger towards the direction of whoever he was referring to, "we'll begin class once you do."

The young man's eye widened marginally when the familiar surname hit his ears, though if he was at all noticeable, he really didn't know. _Velvet's here?_ he asked himself mentally as he began to scan the room before him for the chocolate-haired faunus and eventually found her sitting down in the front row, giving him a look of what looked to be concern. _How in the world did I not notice her until now... and why does she look so worried?_

"Ms. Scarlatina, if you would, could you please raise your—" the history professor began to say, stopping himself when he saw the young man walk towards to where the rabbit-eared faunus was currently sitting. "Oh, it seems that you two already know of each other," he nodded, not paying any more mind to that fact after acknowledging it, "never mind then."

Kaneki didn't utter a word as he strode over to the open seat next to Velvet and sat down in it, waiting for everyone's attention to shift from off of him and back onto Mr. Oobleck, before asking the girl next to him something, making sure to do so in a low enough whisper that she'd be able to hear, "Is everything alright, Velvet?"

"Huh, w-what makes you ask that?" the rabbit-eared faunus whispered back in a voice that really didn't convince him otherwise. In response, he shot her a skeptical look, which made her let out a sigh and say, "D-don't worry, it can wait until after class." The half ghoul opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off before he could start whispering, "Dr. Oobleck may not seem like it, but he takes things like class participation really seriously."

The half ghoul stared at the girl for a few seconds, but eventually nodded and started to unpack all the school supplies that Ozpin provided him the night prior, which was just basically the same notepad and wooden number-two pencil he saw almost everyone else in the room have.

It wasn't known by anyone in this world, but before he was turned into a half-ghoul by Dr. Kanou, Kaneki spent a good majority of his time being a student at Kamii University—a rather renowned mega-university with a rather low acceptance rate for incoming students—which of course, made it extremely easy for him to tune into Oobleck's lecture and start picking out key pieces of information to write down almost immediately, as he had done so a million times before with his various university professors.

From what he could tell, Oobleck was going over the war that took place between the human race and the faunus that happened some time ago–a topic that Kaneki immediately found himself interested in.

"Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated against because of your faunus heritage?" Oobleck asked everyone suddenly, which then prompted the half ghoul to subtly glance over at the faunus sitting next to him to see if she would answer.

Kaneki could only watch on idly as Velvet began to glance around the classroom nervously, which made it clear that she was waiting for someone else to answer before she would give her own. Knowing that she would never do so without some form of encouragement, he shot her a reassuring smile when she looked his way–a smile that he perfected over the time he spent teaching Hinami how to read some of the much more difficult kanji.

Instead of raising her hand like he expected her to, Velvet just stared at him like he was some sort of hallucination that was going to disappear from sight at any second. He was half-tempted to try doing something that would snap her out of her now several second-long reverie, but the sound of Oobleck starting his lecture back up again seemed to do it for him.

"Dreadful, simply dreadful!" the professional lecturer exclaimed, clearly disgusted by the thought of such discrimination. "Remember, students, it's precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds this kind of violence. I mean, look at what happened with the White Fang!"

_Hm, I wonder if he would be thinking like that if he lived in my world instead?_ Kaneki commented to himself offhandedly.

"Now, which one of you scallions can tell me what many theorize to be the turning point in the third year of the war?" the caffeine-blooded professor continued before stopping, probably to give everyone time to come up with an answer. Almost a second later, Oobleck looked up at someone sitting in the upper levels and asked, "Yes?"

"The battle at Fort Castle!" the person, who suspiciously sounded a lot like Weiss, answered with a bit too much excitement in her voice for something like answering a question in class.

"Precisely!" Oobleck then built off the momentum of his earlier question and proceeded to ask, "And, who can tell me the advantage the faunus had over General Lagune's forces?"

"Hey!" a familiar voice suddenly exclaimed from the other side of the room, prompting the half ghoul and pretty much everyone else in the room to shift their attention towards where it came from.

_Isn't that the blonde from yesterday? Ah, what was his name? Damn, I don't think I ever got his name when we talked. Actually, I think I only got the name of that one girl with the orange hair. Nora… It was Nora, right?_

"Mr. Arc! Finally contributing to class! Excellent! This is excellent!" Oobleck dashed over to where the scraggly blonde in question sat, doing it so fast that he looked like a blur as he did so, and asked, "Now, what is the answer?"

To say that the blonde looked unprepared to answer the question posed to him would've been a major understatement, he even started to look around the room as if he could find the answer somewhere inside it.

"Uh… The answer… The advantage…of the faunus…" he mumbled loudly in a rather blatant attempt to stall for time before his eyes suddenly focused on something behind Oobleck's and upon following his gaze to where it lay, Kaneki found himself watching the red-haired girl from yesterday trying to slip the blonde the answer with what looked like hand gestures, "...had over that guy's stuff…" The half ghoul watched as the redhead cupped her hands over her eyes, which prompted the blonde to give the answer of, "Uh, binoculars!"

It didn't take long for the snowy-haired young man to figure out that the answer blonde gave was wrong. The fact that everyone in the room started to laugh sort of gave that much away.

"Very funny, Mr. Arc!" Oobleck told the embarrassed blonde sarcastically from behind his desk and then shifted his gaze onto a boy with orange hair, who was sitting with his feet up on the desk just a row above the embarrassed blonde. "Cardin! Perhaps you would care to share your thoughts on the subject?"

"Well, for one, I know that it's easier to train an animal than a soldier," the boy that Oobleck called, Cardin, stated in such a matter-of-fact tone that it made Kaneki's finger twitch in a want for action.

Apparently, Ken wasn't the only one who thought that way because the redhead, the same one who had tried to help Arc earlier, immediately retorted with, "You're not the most open-minded of individuals, are you, Cardin?"

"What?" the blatantly racist teen asked, his tone defensive as he outstretched his arms in a gesture that just screamed that he was looking for a fight-a fight that Kaneki was tempted to offer if he kept letting garbage slip out from his mouth. "You got a problem?"

"No, I have the answer!" the redhead replied as she turned back towards Oobleck. "It's night vision. Many faunus are known to have perfect sight in the dark."

"General Lagune was also inexperienced and made the mistake of trying to ambush the faunus in their sleep. His massive army was outmatched and the general was captured," he heard Blake add into the conversation suddenly. "Perhaps if he'd paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as such a failure."

This elicited an amused snort from Kaneki–one that he genuinely hoped Cardin heard. _Reasons for Gen. Lagune's defeat at Fort Castle: despite having a massive army to back him, inexperience led him to believe that faunus would be vulnerable in their sleep, but in all actuality, it turns out that some faunus have perfect vision in the dark, which soon led to his defeat,_ the young ghoul paraphrased mentally while he simultaneously scribbled it down on his notepad, deciding that it was probably best to ignore whatever else was happening in the classroom around him and focus on what Oobleck was saying, which just happened to be the words:

"Now! Moving on!"

* * *

**"****Hey, Velvet!" Kaneki called out as he hurried after the faunus in question, who had managed to exit the classroom so quickly that he barely noticed her rushing out the door as he got up from his seat.**

Aforementioned faunus immediately stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face him. She looked at him as if she was confused as to why he followed her, but after a second, her eyes widened as she donned an apologetic expression.

"I thought that you said that we would talk about what was bothering you earlier?" he asked upon finally reaching where she stood, trying his best to keep the amount of irritation in his voice to a minimum as he spoke. "What happened?"

"S-sorry," Velvet squeaked out, rubbing her elbow bashfully. "It was a force of habit, my bad."

A wave of guilt surged through him when he realized what she meant by that. Promptly, he shifted his gaze off to the side and ask in an attempt to change the subject, "So, earlier, you said something about wanting to talk to me about something?"

The sudden change in topic must have surprised the girl because she didn't answer him at first, instead, she just blinked and looked at him quizzically for a few seconds.

"Oh! Uh, I just wanted to know–if you don't mind telling me, of course–if you would tell me what happened to your eye," she explained to him in a tone that could only be described as a combination of awkwardness mixed with worry, a combination that managed to reach her face, forming a display. "I know that we haven't known each other for that long, but I definitely don't remember you wearing an eyepatch yesterday."

_Oh yeah, I forgot about the eyepatch,_ Ken reminded himself as he subconsciously reached up and used his black-tipped fingers to graze the white, medical eyepatch that was currently covering up his kakugan.

Kaneki's lips parted into an embarrassed smile. "Oh, I injured it during my initiation yesterday," he began, scratching at his chin with his left index finger before he let out a self-deprecating scoff. "I was heading back with the artifact and I got blindsided by a boarbatusk, ended up slamming my head against a nearby tree and some of the debris wound up in my eye somehow. The nurse said something along the lines of a corneal abrasion."

That, of course, wasn't the actual reason as to why he was wearing the eyepatch. If something like that were to actually happen, the wound would've healed itself within the span of seconds. No, he wore the piece of fabric over his eye because he still didn't have much control over his kakugan other than simply activating it and, despite there being no history of ghouls in Remnant, it definitely wouldn't bode well for him to have someone catch a glimpse of it by mistake due to it suddenly flaring up.

So, to prevent that from happening, the half ghoul did the same thing he did in his old world and wore an eyepatch to cover it up.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said once again, apologizing in a way that made it seem like she had somehow been directly responsible for an injury that wasn't even real to begin with. "So…how long do you have to wear it? The eyepatch, I mean."

Kaneki had been a half-ghoul for about year a now and he still hadn't learned how to fully control the activation of his kakugan, meaning that giving Velvet an indefinite amount of timetable for his so-called recovery the best option for him, since it would give him a good amount of time to try and learn how to control it. If the amount of time allotted wasn't enough for him to do so, then he could just claim that he had gotten so used to wearing it that he just wanted to keep it on, despite his eye being fully healed.

"The nurse said that, at the very least, it would take a couple of weeks for it to heal," the half ghoul answered, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. "Then again, the nurse did also say that the recovery times for these kinds of injuries varies, so I can't really say."

"Ah, well, I'm sorry to hear that," Velvet offered as if her words could provide some sort of consolation for the supposed injury, though if he was _actually_ injured, Kaneki was sure that he would appreciate the sentiment anyways.

"Don't be," he waved off her apology–smile still prominent on his lips, but definitely waned in strength. "Trust me, I've had worse things happen to me."

Velvet opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out of it and it continued to remain silent for several seconds before she finally managed hurdle whatever obstacle kept her from speaking, "Well, uh, I should get going to my next class before the bell rings."

"Oh, yeah. I guess I should get going too, huh?" he rhetorically asked to no one in particular. "Well, see you tomorrow then?"

Velvet gave him a slight nod in response and shakily repeated his own words back to him–a smile of her own adorning her lips, "S-see you tomorrow."

Taking that as the conclusion to their conversation, Kaneki nodded his head in goodbye, turned, and started walking away from Velvet, towards where his next class should be located. As he walked, however, he couldn't help but notice the familiar feeling of someone watching him coming from the direction he once faced, which prompted him to stop dead in his tracks and look back over his shoulder to see who exactly was staring at him.

What he found was a familiar pair of chocolate-colored eyes looking back over her own shoulder at him-a pair of eyes that quickly turned themselves away the moment they noticed his one eye staring right back at her.

_I wonder what that was about?_ the half ghoul asked himself, watching the rabbit faunus walk off into the distance before he turning his attention back onto the area of space that was directly in front of him, which was now suddenly occupied by a certain bow-wearing teammate of his.

"I didn't know you knew Velvet," Blake said to him upon seeing that she had his attention, a tiny shred of curiosity hidden somewhere under the dryness that she usually spoke with.

"Oh, you can say that I happened to bump into her yesterday," he replied, his tone sheepish as he reached a hand up to scratch the back of his head. "I mean that quite literally too," he added, once he saw the confused look his newly-minted teammate was giving him. "She's kind of the one who forced me to have to go to the laundry room yesterday."

Blake blinked at him owlishly with her amber eyes after that. "Oh, so that's how you managed to find the laundry room," she nodded her head as she said that, speaking in a way that made it sound like she had just gotten an answer to a question she had been pondering for a long time, which, admittedly, amused him quite a bit.

"So, what do you think?" The question came from Blake so suddenly that it actually managed to catch him off-guard a bit, but before he could properly answer it, another question was fired at him. "About Velvet, I mean?"

Kaneki blinked at his teammate and ended up blurting out the first answer that came to mind, "She seems nice enough, though, honestly, I don't think I know enough about her to have fully developed an opinion on her quite yet."

For some reason, the half ghoul's explanation caused the girl to smile a bit. "Huh, I guess I should've expected you to say something like that, shouldn't have I?" she asked, seemingly pleased with the answer he gave her for some unknown reason. "Especially from someone like you."

Ken blinked and raised an eyebrow at the person standing before him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing really," Blake answered him dryly, shrugging her shoulders lightly as she did so. A part of him was actually tempted on taking her words at face value, but the still present smile on her lips stopped him from doing so. He was going to further question on what she meant by what she said earlier, but before he could speak, she turned her back to him before he could do so.

Now walking away from him, she suddenly stopped in her tracks, looked over her shoulder at him and told him, "Come on, we need to get going. Our next class starts in a couple and the others are all waiting for us."

Knowing that he probably couldn't refute her on what she just said, Kaneki nodded his head at Blake, which prompted her to start walking away from him once again, leaving the young man to follow her silently.

**-Chapter End-**


	4. Chapter 4: Imitation Coffee

Um… Do I even need to say anything? All I really did was change the pacing of the training montage.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I don't own either Tokyo Ghoul or RWBY.

**-Chapter 4: Imitation Coffee-**

"Are you ready?"

The person who asked him that question raised her sword and pointed its tip directly at him as she spoke, which prompted him to raise his own weapon and do the same, mimicking the stance had been shown to him earlier.

Nodding his head, Kaneki stated back in reply, "Yeah." He then proceeded to nod his head to further emphasize his readiness. "You?"

"Please, I've been ready," she said back, her tone literally dripping with confidence as she used her free hand to pull a white handkerchief out from her pocket. "We'll start when this hits the ground."

After saying that, the girl threw the piece of fabric into the air, which prompted the half ghoul to fixate his eyes onto it as it reached its peak and began to sway slowly, back-and-forth down towards the ground. His entire body instinctively tensing up in preparation for the clash to come.

Taking in a deep breath, Kaneki prepared himself for the upcoming clash, already knowing that it was probably going to be one of his more difficult encounters he's had since he first woke up in Remnant, which, honestly, wasn't saying much since the only things he's had to actually fight until this point we're creatures of Grimm, and while the grimm weren't pushovers in any sense of the word, they were rather easy creatures to figure out in terms of how to combat them.

Despite occasionally showing clear signs of being more intelligent than their animal counterparts, the Grimm were, from what he's seen, still just that in battle—animals. They allowed their baser instincts to govern what they did, and that basically meant that the only thing they really cared about in a fight was dispatching their target, or surviving the encounter itself. There was no in between with them.

When fighting against the Grimm, Ken didn't have to think about them having some sort of plan hidden underneath their actions. All he had to focus on was killing them, and since he was both physically stronger and faster than most Grimm, he could kill them without much effort.

The same, however, couldn't be said about an actual living person, who could think and adapt to things much faster than any Grimm could, which automatically made them twenty times more dangerous than any glorified animal in his eyes, despite the clear physical superiority a half ghoul like himself had over them.

Being someone who used a fighting style that highly centered around thinking and adapting himself, Kaneki knew the dangers of underestimating someone in a fight, just because they had inferior physical capabilities. He killed a many a foe because they did the very same to him.

Now, there was no doubt in his mind that the person standing before him was close to the same level as him when it came to her acumen in combat. She was also undoubtedly more experienced with the weapon in her hands than he was with his, which, by the way, was a weapon that he had only gotten less than a couple of days prior to today. Also, if that didn't seem like enough cards being stacked against him, he was fairly sure she had taken his physical superiority into account and came up with a plan to counter it already so…there was also that.

All of those things were working against Kaneki in his coming fight, so he knew that extreme caution was going to have be shown when that handkerchief finally landed onto the ground.

_Overall, she's probably more intelligent than I am and equally as adaptable, _the half ghoul thought to himself as his eyes watched aforementioned handkerchief fall slowly to its destined location. _She knows that she can't compare to me physically, so she'll most likely lean on her familiarity with her weapon and my inexperience to make things more even between us._

Kaneki sent a slight nod of acknowledgement towards her after he thought that, planting the bottom of his lead foot further into the ground as he did so. _That's a good plan for a situation like this,_ he admitted as he watched the handkerchief finally crumple into a little, white pile on the ground, signalling the start of combat, _but not a perfect one by any means._

Plans, in a way, were a lot like pieces of metal. No matter how strong it was thought to be, it could always be snapped when the right amount of pressure was applied, so that's exactly what he planned on doing against her.

Shooting straight at her with reckless abandon, the half ghoul soon found himself a few inches away from where she stood. She, in response to his sudden charge, stood exactly still, probably thinking that she was skilled enough to counter his attack.

_Alright then, _he mentally began as he swung his weapon at his opponent, _let's see if you really are as skilled as you say you are!_

Time, for Kaneki, moved as if it were in slow motion as he watched his weapon inch closer and closer towards its target, and right as it was about to reach its destination, there was a flash of silver.

It was over before he knew it. Something, presumably his opponent's weapon, hit his own mid-swing, stopping his attack dead in its tracks with a loud, metallic clang. Not a nano-second later, he found his arm moving towards the very opposite direction in which it had been swung in to begin with.

_So, I guess she wasn't just bragging earlier, huh?_ Ken noted, smiling to himself wryly right before he felt something hard and sharp slam suddenly into the center of his sternum, cracking the bone into many, many individual pieces.

The pain, the sudden inability to control his breathing, and the burning pain that he felt in his lungs because of that sudden inability all caused memories of Shachi to flash through his mind, or to be more specific, the one that involved him taking a gut-shot from that monster of a ghoul.

Kaneki, being someone who's had to go through a good deal of pain and punishment over the past couple years, really couldn't say that the blow his teammate had landed on him hurt very much, but it did make it nearly impossible for him to breathe for a few of seconds afterward and that, however, did hurt. Especially when all of the oxygen in his lungs had been forced out of them that same amount of time beforehand.

Rubbing his chest in hopes of further stimulating his regeneration, the half ghoul heard his opponent, and recently newly dubbed sparring partner, let out a sigh of what sounded like frustration. "Really, Kaneki?" she asked him disbelievingly, her fingers massaging the bridge of her nose as she did so. "Come on, you and I both know that charging in like that isn't a good idea, _even _if you were just trying to see how good I am."

"It… was that obvious, huh?" aforementioned young man asked as he struggled to regain his breath, "And… by the way… what… what in the hell did… did you just hit me with?"

"With my Myrtenaster, of course," she answered, speaking in a way that made it seem like the answer to that question should've been obvious to him. "What else would I have hit you with?"

The half ghoul looked up at his sparring partner and shot her a disbelieving look, wanting to retort back with something witty and sarcastic, but stopped himself when he realized that he wasn't in any position to say something like that to her, especially since she was taking time out of her day to do exactly this for him.

"Ah." Letting out a quiet chuckle when he felt all of his sternum shift back into place, Kaneki turned his attention back down to the ground. "Sorry, I just wasn't aware that you were going to be using it like that."

"Hey, you're the one who told me that bladed weapons couldn't pierce through your skin," she shot back, her verbal counter acting just like the one she gave him earlier with her blade, quick and sharp. "So forgive me for thinking that I could hit you with it and have it not hurt."

Letting out a sigh and forcing himself back up to his feet, Kaneki was quick to point a little detail of that earlier conversation out to her, "Weiss, I never said that getting hit by such things didn't hurt."

Scoffing to herself, Weiss shook her head and rolled her eyes disbelievingly. "_And_, you never exactly told me otherwise now, did you?" she shot back without a missing a beat.

Ken couldn't help but smile a little at the girl's justification for quite literally caving his chest in. "Touche," he said back with an amused snort.

"So, tell me," the heiress began as she went to go and pick up the handkerchief she had thrown up into the air earlier, "did you learn anything from that exchange, or did you end up just taking that hit for no reason?"

_Hm, did I learn something from that? _The half ghoul asked himself, fingers on his right hand cupping around his chin as he moved back over to the spot he started their sparring session at.

"Well, I guess you can say I learned a few things," he eventually answered after giving it a few moments of contemplation. Shifting the hand that was on his chin over to the back of his head to scratch at it, he shrugged his shoulder slightly and elaborated further on what he meant. "I learned that parrying strikes at the right angle can lead to the opponent being wide open for an counterattack."

Lowering his hand and cocking his head to the side contemplatively, he continued on tentatively, "I also guess that I should probably be faster with my attacks, or at least make them more unpredictable because, by the looks of it, you predicted my attack pretty easily earlier."

"Hm, good," the heiress commented with a nod of her head, seemingly satisfied with the answer. "If you were able to pick that much up from that small of an exchange, I think that we might just be able to get you to close to halfway decent with that sword of yours, _before_ we get assigned any actual missions."

Glancing down at aforementioned sword, which was currently being held in his left hand as he had to use his right for something, the half ghoul couldn't help but make note of how underwhelming it looked when compared to some of the other weapons he's seen during his still somewhat brief time attending Beacon–a fact that was only made more prominent when it was compared to his team leader's weapon of choice, which was _literally_ a scythe as tall as she was, that could also be turned into a sniper rifle whenever needed.

When Ruby first demonstrated how she used it to him, Kaneki was immediately met with the mental conundrum of figuring out how exactly she, a fifteen year-old, was able to use such a weapon, as he was sure that using such a weapon was incredibly straining on its user both physically and mentally. She explained to him that she had her uncle teach her how to use it back when she was still in Signal Academy, Vale's premier middle school, when he asked, though her explanation only provided him with more than it did answers.

The inexplicability of the whole situation didn't make him any less impressed with the fact that she actually managed to master the beastly thing, though. If anything, Ken only became more impressed by the feat, the more he thought about it. Even he, the quick-learner that he was, was sure that he'd have trouble learning how to use it himself.

Fortunately, Ken wouldn't have to do anything like that. Actually, in contrast to _Crimson Rose_, the name his leader had given to her much-loved gun-scythe, his weapon would be a cake-walk to learn how to use.

It was as straight-forward as straight-forward got, in terms of weapons. It was pretty much a single-edged sword that could pop out of its hilt, something that wasn't at all special, considering that most weapons in Remnant had the ability to fold into much smaller versions of themselves for easier transport–something that Weiss was quick to point out to him when he mistakenly took it for one of the weapon's distinguishing features.

When Ozpin first gave him the weapon, the headmaster explained to him that the simplicity of the weapon was because it wasn't to replace his kagune at all, which meant, to him, that it was a weapon to be used when his bare hands weren't enough and the use of his last resort, his kagune, couldn't be justified.

It was something that the headmaster didn't want getting out anytime soon–the fact that he, Ken Kaneki, was a half ghoul–and using the one thing that pointed that fact out all willy-nilly definitely didn't lend itself to benefitting that effort by any margin. So, to help prevent things like that, Ozpin made him promise to abide by a certain set of rules that he came up with, regarding its use.

The list itself wasn't long and its rules were not at all too demanding. The half ghoul really only had two rules that he had to follow: the first being that he was to limit its use to only when the situation called for it and the second was that he was to not use it in any public settings without first consulting him.

Seeing that those rules were so easy to follow that he could probably do so with his eyes closed, Kaneki accepted Ozpin's proposition, the weapon, and then, the task of learning how to use it.

"So, are you ready to go again?" Kaneki blinked at the sound of Weiss' voice.

Turning his head over to where it came from, Ken found that the heiress had moved back to her original position at some point, pointing the tip of her sword right at him once again.

The student in this situation nodded his head in response. "Alright then, I'm going to try charging at you this time," she explained while cocking her head in the direction of his original starting position. "You just try and not get hit again."

"Understood," Kaneki affirmed with a nod of his head, rubbing at his now recovered sternum one last time before he then made his back over to where he started and got himself into a ready position.

Seeing this prompted the heiress of the Schnee fortune to begin the process she went through earlier and throw her handkerchief up into the air once again. Being a man who learned from his prior mistakes, the half ghoul made sure to keep his eyes fixed on his opponent instead of the piece of fabric like he did last time and waited for her to make her move.

_Now from what that explanation she gave me earlier, it's probably safe to assume that she isn't going to try any slashing attacks when she gets close to me._ Like it always did, Kaneki's mind when into overdrive in coming up with ideas on how to deal with a dangerous opponent. _The type of sword she's holding is designed for stabbing, not for slashing, after all._

_Welp, _that _complicates things. _The one receiving the charge frowned to himself and adjusted the grip his fingers had on his weapon. _A stab is going to be a much harder attack to parry since it takes less time to execute compared to a normal slash. I'm going to have to_—

The handkerchief must've hit the ground when he was thinking, because something small and white, and coming his way so fast that his eyes couldn't track of whatever it was, suddenly shot out from the tip of Weiss' sword and towards him.

Instinctively, knowing that he didn't want to be hit by whatever was coming towards him, Kaneki scrambled to move out of the way and just barely managed to do so–an extremely small amount of space coming in between his shoes and whatever it was.

_She was aiming for my feet?_ Ken asked himself in his confusion as he reset his feet, but forcibly shoved the question to the utmost back of his mind when he noticed a much bigger white blur rushing towards him.

Knowing that it was most likely Weiss going in for a stab while he was preoccupied, Kaneki's eyes frantically scanned the blur rushing towards him, looking for the tell tale sliver of silver that'd give away her blade's position and the angle it was taking towards his body.

Finding what he was looking for and noticing that it was heading right towards the center of his chest, the half ghoul instinctively stepped over to his right and twisted his body so that the sharp, but ultimately harmless piece of steel just barely missed touching the fabric of his shirt.

Planting the heels of his loafers into the dirt under him, Kaneki skid to a complete stop. His dull grey eyes never leaving his instructor as she too brought herself to a stop, as to prevent the chance of being caught off guard if she continued to charge him.

Much to his surprise though, the heiress didn't pursue him like she expected him to. Instead, she did the exact opposite and relaxed her body, before then turning to face him.

"That was good," Weiss stated as she put her free hand on her hip, though her words were far from sounding at all satisfied, "though, it would've been better if you tried to parry that thrust instead of just dodging it." She clicked her tongue in annoyance as she turned her head off to her right. "I mean, the last time I checked, I didn't drag myself all the way out here just to teach you how to dodge attacks of all things."

The half ghoul couldn't help but act a little bewildered by his instructor's…less than savory comments towards him. Not to say that he didn't expect them to never come, as she was taking time out of her day to help him–someone she really didn't trust in the first place–but he, at the very least, thought that they'd be able to get through the first session without incident.

_Well, her grievances aside, I can't say that what she just told me was wrong._ Kaneki let out an exasperated sigh as he made his way back to his starting position, adjusting the grip he had on his blade while he did so. _If I want to get the hang of using this thing, I'm going to have to deal with any mistakes that I make and start relying on it more. _

Ken, having notice that he had, at some point, reached his destination while caught up in his thoughts, stopped his feet from moving him any more forward. _Alright,_ he began as he turned himself to face exactly where he knew Weiss would be standing and leveled the tip of his sword at her, _let's try this one more time, shall we?_

* * *

Kaneki, from as far back as he could remember, had always been somebody who could pick up and apply concepts faster than the average person–he could distinctly remember all of the praises his primary school teachers showered him with for that very reason–but even after smashing his head against the wall for the past few days, attempting to learn how to use the weapon Ozpin had given to him, he couldn't keep himself from thinking that what he was currently doing, wasn't going to get him the results he wanted in the time allotted.

Of course, there were advantages to sparring with Weiss as she, undoubtedly, had a wealth of knowledge that he could tap into and use when actual fighting broke out, but, in the end, having knowledge would only get him so far–knowing how to use a sword didn't mean anything if he didn't know how to use it effectively, after all.

Yes, technically speaking, if the half ghoul were to keep sparring with Weiss, he'd eventually reach a point where he was comfortable enough with his weapon to use it effectively in combat, but unfortunately, he just didn't have that time. Something like that could take him days, weeks, or even months to do and, again, he just didn't have that kind of time. The first-year teams would be required to go on actual missions in the upcoming weeks and if his team just so happened to get one that took place in an open, public area, he would need the thing to carry him through any confrontations.

Kaneki, not being able to do so, would only result in him slowing down his other teammates and he absolutely hated the thought of being a hinderance to anyone, so he worked on coming up with solutions to stop something like that from happening.

The most obvious solution would be to just spend more of his off-hours practicing by himself, but that had the downside of taking away from the amount of time he could spend with his new teammates, which he would need so that he could develop some sort of chemistry between the five of them.

_Dammit… _Kaneki cursed to himself mentally as he pushed himself back to his feet, after having been handed another defeat at the hands of Weiss, …_why the hell am I having so much trouble with this? Something like this should be easy for me? So why_—_?_

The train of thought that was roaring through his head suddenly came to a grinding stop when the half ghoul realized what his mistake was and when he did, he felt like slapping himself in the face. _Hard._

He was simply expecting too much of himself.

It was an absurd thought to have, but perhaps, instead of trying to become a master swordsman in such a small amount of time, Kaneki should take things one step at a time and try to become competent with the thing first.

"Hey Kaneki!" The sound of Weiss calling out to him pulled him out of his thoughts instantly. Blinking owlishly and turning his head to face where the voice came from, he found himself staring at an heiress who was glaring at him with her arms on her hips. "Oh my— Did you seriously space out on me _again_?!"

Having been caught red-handed and knowing it, the guilty party let out an awkward chuckle and sheepishly replied with, "Um… Y-yeah…" He reached his right hand up and used it to scratch at the back of his head while he trailed off. "Sorry about that!"

"_Hmph_! So, as I was saying before I noticed that you were staring off into space," the prosecutor began coldly, prompting a smile as sheepish as his chuckle was earlier to crawl onto his features, "if you feel like you're having a hard time adjusting, don't worry." Her voice remained predominantly cold and uncaring, though he could've swore that he heard a tinge of sympathy in her words. "Nobody's naturally good at something like this. I know that this is rather cliche to say but, everybody has trouble when they first start out, it's just something you have to keep working at if you really want to get any good."

Ken opened his mouth, intending to tell her that he'd already realized as much and would be just fine from this point onward, but Weiss cut him off before he could do so. "And before you ask…" she trailed off as she suddenly cupped her free hand over her opposite arm's elbow, "…_yes_, that means exactly what you think it does. Even _I_, as unlikely as it sounds, had trouble when I first started out."

Kaneki couldn't help the owlish fluttering of his eyelids in response to the heiress's sudden confession of normalcy, not quite understanding where it had come from and what exactly its underlying purpose was. He could tell that she had most likely said it to keep his confidence from dropping due to the consistent string of failures, but why even bring up the fact that she herself had trouble when she was younger? It just seemed wholly unnecessary.

_I guess she thought I would ask if she had trouble too, which implies that she's been ask something like that often in the past–a given considering what her last name is. I'm sure that there are people who would immediately jump to conclusions of grandeur because her family name was Schnee. _A mental picture of a child version of Weiss struggling to use a sword suddenly popped up in his mind as he thought that. _Still, that doesn't explain why she'd even bring something like this up in the_—

"Kaneki!" The sound of the person he was pondering screeching at him interrupted his train of thought, shifting his focus onto her, he found himself staring at a girl who was massaging the bridge of her nose out of irritation. "_Seriously_? Again?! You spaced out again?!"

The half ghoul, not being able to deny the fact at all, simply let out another chuckle in response.

* * *

"Hey Weiss…" Kaneki began as he sat himself down at the base of a tree close to the area in which he and Weiss were sparring, landing with a light thump, "…you mind if I ask you something?"

Shrugging her shoulders, aforementioned girl, who was standing directly in front of him, stabbed Myrtenaster into the dirt and replied, "I don't see why not. Go on ahead. Ask."

Ken couldn't help but smile a bit at that. The way she just phrased that admittance, it reminded him of someone back from his world. "Why exactly did you agree to do this?" Cracking his middle finger, the half ghoul posed the question that had been bothering for the past couple of days. "Teaching me, I mean."

There was silence for a moment and then, she tilted her head to the side and asked back, "What do you mean?"

"Well, I was just wondering what changed," the half ghoul explained as he turned to face the row of trees over to his left, "before Ozpin brought up the idea of doing this, it wasn't like you were clamoring to spend time with me." Turning his attention back onto the confused heiress standing before him, he asked, "So, what made you change your mind?"

A stint of silence that spanned many seconds reigned over the two of them like a dictator, before eventually spurring Kaneki into speaking, "You don't have to say anything if you don't want—"

"—If you really have to know," Weiss cut him off as she crossed her arms over chest, her tone dripping with so much irritation that he was sure that he could fill an entire bucket with it, "it's because back when team RWBY first started, I promised Ruby that I'd try to be the best teammate I could and since you are _technically_ my teammate now, I felt like not providing my assistance when you when you clearly needed it would be like actively going against that promise in a way."

"Well then, I suppose I should consider myself lucky you made that promise, huh?" Ken asked as he flashed a sheepish grin at what had to be the most heartwarming thing he's ever heard the almost very literal ice queen say.

Kaneki wasn't lying when he said that either. He really did mean it when he said that he was lucky to have Weiss make that promise, because if what he assumed to be the case really was, then it lead to him getting the best possible teacher he possible in the situation.

Being a member of one of the wealthiest families in all of Remnant–a fact that the heiress never failed to shove in people's face whenever possible–she was probably taught how to use the weapon at her feet by the some of the best instructors money could acquire and if all that she had told him a couple days prior proved to be true, then she's also had personal experience dealing with the one problem that hovered around his head the past week: dealing with the expectations one put on themselves.

When their training first started a week ago, the young man had been too confident in his ability to learn things quicker than most and thought that he would be able to master a weapon in a span of weeks, which, in all actuality, was entirely impossible.

In hopes of rectifying that problem, Ken tried scaling his goal back to just becoming proficient with the weapon, but that, however, only created yet another problem for him to have to deal with. He tried scaling the problem to a lot more achievable goal, but all that did was create yet another problem for him to have to contend with and he honestly didn't know if doing so made his _actual_ goal of proficiency by semester's end any more attainable.

"And don't you forget it," Weiss replied smugly, briefly flashing him a proud smile at the praise before, as if suddenly realizing her mistake, her expression quickly shifted back to the stern one she usually wore–something that, in turn, made him chuckle a bit.

The ice queen, on the other hand, probably did have an idea, thankfully enough.

"Alright, now let's try that again, shall we?" she added as she went to go retrieve her handkerchief. "Now remember what I told you earlier," she began as she bent down to pick up aforementioned piece of cloth, "whenever you find yourself in a deadlock with somebody—"

"—I remember," Kaneki stated with a small nod of affirmation as he returned to his own starting position, or rather, a space bit off to the right of what his original starting position was, since his old one was little more than a pit in the ground now. "Trust me, I remember."

Hell, how could he forget? Kaneki could still feel the very literal sting of the last time he forgot to heed that lesson.

* * *

_I can't believe that I lost track of the time this badly,_ Weiss berated herself as she stared at the setting sun, before turning her attention back onto the young man standing to her right, shaking her head disbelievingly as she did so. _Next time, I should remember to use a timer to make sure something like this doesn't happen again._

"That's enough for today," she said to Kaneki, who looked he was already getting ready for what would've been their twelfth round of sparring. "I told the others that we were supposed to be done sparring over an hour ago, so we should start heading back before they start to worry."

The ghoul blinked his dull grey eyes in surprise at that. "Oh, really?" he asked her as he relaxed back into a regular stance, glancing over to where the sun was in the sky. "Huh." A small smile cracked his lips as he added, "I didn't even notice."

Weiss felt a small prick of annoyance hit her when she saw that smile of his.

_How could someone like __**him**_ _have a smile like that?_

The heiress had asked herself that question every time it found onto his face, but every time she had been unable to come up with an acceptable answer.

Aesthetically speaking, there was nothing wrong with the smile at all. It just made the owner of the smile seem so…harmless, so unlike what she had seen of him up until now.

The face that smile was painted across belonged to Ken Kaneki, the same man who killed four beowolves with nothing but his bare hands, burned through the Emerald Forest killing Grimm left and right like it was nothing, and decimated and devoured a DeathStalker with tentacles that sprouted out from his back–all with a smile of pure unadulterated glee on his face.

How then? How could a simple smile make someone she had seen do all those things look so… so… so harmless?

Honestly, Weiss didn't know and that annoyed her to no end.

"There something wrong?"

The heiress blinked when she heard that.

"Y-yeah, I just spaced out a little there," the heiress stated as her pale cheeks turned a shade redder. "Come on," she added before he could respond, crossing her arms over her chest and quickly turning away from him, so that he wouldn't notice. "Let's head back."

* * *

Kaneki blinked at the scene before him, silently wondering to himself what exactly he was looking at, as he retraced all the steps it took for him to get in this situation.

The half ghoul had just finished his daily sparring session with Weiss and as they made their way back to their dorms, he decided to do something that he had been thinking about doing ever since the sessions first began: offer to make her a cup of coffee.

Ever since she first agreed to become his sparring partner, he felt the overwhelming need to do something to pay her back for her efforts. He wasn't good at much. Other than fighting and reading, all he could really do, or rather, do _well_, was make coffee and he had seen her stealing glances at the coffee-brewing set Ozpin gave to him, so he assumed that she had some interest in what he was going to be doing with it and that prompted him to make the offer.

She seemed to be reluctant at first, but she eventually came around to the idea after some gentle coercing-gentle meaning: implying that it'd be one of the best cups of coffee she ever had-on his part.

So, instead of going with their original plan of heading back to team RWBY's room, Weiss pulled out her scroll to inform the rest of her teammates that the two of them would be making a quick detour to his room, a spare storage closet provided to him by Ozpin that the academy wasn't using, and they were off to the only private place he had in Remnant.

Like always, the walk back to Beacon was one that was made in almost complete silence. Conversation would occasionally spark between them, usually something about that happened when they were sparring, but they were almost always quick and unsubstantial, to the point that literally nothing that was said was at all worth mentioning again.

Not that he really minded anyway. It at least saved him from any more lectures on her part.

Eventually, the two of them reached his room and when he went to unlock the door to his room, Ken was surprised to find that it was somehow already unlocked, which immediately put him on edge due to him distinctly remembering having had locked it before he left for the day.

Now thinking that someone had broke into his room, the half ghoul reached for the doorknob, turned it slowly and pushed it open with his body pressed up against the wood, all the while peeking through the crack the opening door made he did so. He already knew that someone was inside. The last thing he wanted to do was manage to still be caught off guard by whoever it was. That would flat out be embarrassing.

When his eyes caught glimpse of who it was who actually broke into his room, the victim in the situation found his body going through a strange progression of states upon finding out who broke into his room. At first, he felt all his muscles clench up in response to seeing the figures of people, but they all quickly relaxed themselves when he realized that he knew who those figures belonged to. Then after that, the only muscles in his body that moved were the ones in his face, which had contorted to form an expression that he hoped accurately portrayed how baffling he found the sight before him to be.

There, standing dead center in the middle of his room, which was about half/a third of the size of the standard dorm room, were two very familiar faces.

The older and blonder of the two was wearing a mask that seemed to be made entirely out of cardboard and a thin piece of string, which had been altered in a way that made it look like a crude approximation of a DeathStalker's faceplate. The other and much younger of the two was wearing a mask, _his_ mask to be exact, while eight, triangular-shaped pieces of cardboard, all of which painted black, stuck out from the small of her back. Kaneki, who was standing at his doorway with his mouth slightly slack jawed, realized who the two of them were almost immediately.

With the two half-sisters staring at him, an awkward silence began to permeate the air.

"Hey, why are you just standing there?" Weiss asked him, her voice irritated as he heard her footsteps move from directly behind him to right next to him. "I don't have all day, you… know…" Just like him, whatever thought was going through her head was forced to a dead stop when she saw what he had. "…um, what's going on here?"

The two parties of two stared at each other in complete and utter silence. Neither of them moved, nor did they blink. They just started at each other before, finally, Ruby decided to break the standoff.

"Uh… we can explain."

* * *

"…so that's basically what happened," Yang finished explaining with a cheery smile, her body bouncing up slightly as she clapped her hands onto her sides.

"Alright, so let me get this straight," Weiss began as she massaged the bridge of her nose slowly. "The three of you, after noticing that I hadn't come back to the room at the time I usually do, decided to come here and ask Kaneki if he knew where I was."

"Yep," the two half-sisters, who were still wearing the costumes they created, said in complete unison with one another. They even nodded at the same time.

"And then, after seeing that Kaneki wasn't here, thought it best to wait here and see if we were just running later than usual?" the heiress pressed on with her questioning, her tone remaining a consistent level of irritation throughout. "But, after a while the two of you got bored and decided that the two of you would try and reenact his fight with the DeathStalker?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Ugh… why am I not surprised?" the impromptu interogator grumbled to herself as she shook her head in what Kaneki assumed was resignation. Turning her head to look at him, she proceeded to cross her arms over her chest and ask, "Well, did you have any questions you wanted to ask them?"

"Just one," the half ghoul stated as he pushed himself off the wall he was leaning on, uncrossing his own arms as he did so. "How exactly did the three of you get in here? I distinctly remember locking the door when I left to go to class in the morning and I don't ever recall giving any of you a key, so unless any of you know how to pick—"

"—oh, yeah, that!" Team RWBY's resident livewire cut him off in her usual energetic manner. "Blake over there picked the lock for us."

As she said that, the blonde pointed a thumb over her shoulder as she said that, which prompted him to lean over so that he could look at what exactly she was pointing at. There, sitting on the foot of his bed with her back pressed up to the wall, reading a book and generally acting as though the four of them weren't even in the room as her, was Blake.

At the mention of her name, Blake looked up from aforementioned book, turned her head towards where they stood and gave them a quick wave, though all she actually did was raise her hand into the air for a second or two, of acknowledgement, before immediately returning her attention back onto what she was doing.

_Well, I guess that explains that,_ the half ghoul thought to himself with a singular blink of his eyes, letting out a sigh before he started walking towards the wooden desk that sat next to the wall opposite of his bed–on it sat all of the things he needed to do what he had brought Weiss here to do in the first place. _I better start boiling some water for Weiss's coffee._

"Um… Are we in trouble?" Ruby asked as a single bead of sweat ran down the side of her pale forehead, her voice coming out extremely muffled due to the mask that was covering her mouth. The way she spoke reminded him greatly of a child who had been caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar. He thought it was adorable.

"No," he answered flatly, shaking his head lightly as he reached his desk. Flipping on the electric kettle that Ozpin had been kind of enough to supply him with, he turned towards his young superior, subconsciously leaned his weight onto aforementioned desk and crossed his arms over his chest, flashing her an understanding smile. "Just make sure you have someone message me before you decide to break into my room, alright?"

The fifteen year old let out a relieved sigh at his words, which made him assume that she was probably expecting him to be angry with her, though that show of relief didn't last very long as a second later it turned into one of curiosity. "So how about you two?" She asked, her voice displaying that curiosity. "Why were the two of you so late anyways?"

"We just lost track of the time, is all," the half ghoul explained, having to raise the volume of his voice as the high-pitched ringing of steam escaping from the already mentioned kettle started to ring out through the room.

"Right, Weiss?" He turned his gaze toward aforementioned heiress as he asked that, meaning for her to confirm what he just said, but instead of her looking at him like he expected, he found her staring over at his bed with a visibly troubled expression. "Weiss?"

"Um, is no one going to question how exactly Blake knows how to pick a lock?" his sparring partner asked in a low whisper, probably doing so to make sure the person she was talking about didn't hear her, her tone making it aggressively clear that she thought that the fact that no one was questioning it to be absurd.

"Well, of course we asked," Yang huffed with a light indignation to her voice as she planted her hands onto her hips and leaned forwards, toward the heiress, lowering her own voice to match Weiss. Turning her eyes away, over to where the subject of their conversation sat, she added in a low, under-the-breath grumble, "It's just that she didn't answer us when we did."

"And none of you found that to be the least bit suspicious?" the salt-haired girl deadpanned.

"Well yeah, but if she doesn't want to talk about it, what do 'ya want me to do?" the blonde teen replied with a small shrug of her shoulders as she straightened herself out. "It's not like I can just beat it out of her."

Weiss glanced over towards her bow-wearing teammate and stared at her with a look that made it look as if she was contemplating something, before she finally crossed her arms over her chest and released what had to be her millionth sigh of the day. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she relented, much to the shock of everyone listening. Well, everyone other than Kaneki, who had witnessed her do something similar the day she learned about his true nature.

_I should probably change the subject before things start getting out of hand,_ Kaneki thought to himself right as the kettle had stopped emitting sound, which meant that the water had finally came to a boil. He smiled at the coincidence. _Huh… That was convenient._

"So, on a much lighter note," the salt hair began as he started to walk back over to his desk, intending to unpack all the things he would need. The act gained the attention of everyone other than Blake, who was, unsurprisingly, still reading her book. "How do you take your coffee, Weiss?"

"Black is fine," the heiress answered after a moment of hesitation on her part, which surprised him slightly.

During his several month long stint as a waiter at Anteiku, he found that most customers around Weiss's age disliked the taste of pure black coffee due to the inherent bitterness and often opted to put things like sweeteners, milk, etc. into their coffee to help soften the taste. Hell, there were still some adults who couldn't handle the taste.

Then again, now that he thought about it, Weiss was born into a substantially more wealthy family than most, so it would make sense to assume that her palette was a little more refined than someone born into your average, everyday Japanese family.

"Got it," the half ghoul stated with a small nod before putting himself to work on the coffee.

Pulling open a drawer in his desk, he looked for, located, and pulled a small plastic bag filled with dark-roast coffee grinds out from inside it. With a light pull, the bag opened up and allowed a bitter-sweet aroma to seep out from it. A smile tugged on the corner of his lips in response to it. He loved the smell. It reminded him of better times.

Sidestepping over to the metal stand holding a paper, water filter over an awaiting coffee pot, Ken tipped and shook a small portion of the bag's contents into said filter. Upon pouring in a sufficient amount, he reached over to the kettle sitting at the edge of his desk and picked it up by its handle, before proceeding to pour the newly boiled water into the pile of grinds slowly, but not too slowly, in a circular motion.

A wave of nostalgia ran over him as he watched the steaming water hit the little mountain of crushed beans and dampen them. Seeping through the pile and the paper filter, the water began to collect in the middle of the aforementioned filter, slowly gaining more and more mass before finally dropping down inside the pot.

The moment the first drop of that deep-brown, almost black liquid appeared, the half ghoul found his mind wandering back to his days at Anteiku. The energetic chatter of teenage girls filling the air, the sight of someone sequestering themselves off into a little corner with a book, the smell of freshly-brewed coffee permeating the air, the peaceful atmosphere that held the heart like a pair of a mother's hand…

Those were all things that he experienced daily at Anteiku. So much so that, at some point, they had become classified as mundane happenings to him, which was ironic, as he constantly found himself yearning to have them back.

Kaneki would never be able to describe just how much he wanted to return to those days, where he got to work alongside people who had gradually become something akin to a surrogate family to him, but he knew that he'd never be able to go back to those days, especially not now that he was in Remnant.

_Irimi… Koma… Manager_…

Those were the names of his coworkers at Anteiku, the names of his friend—No, his family. They were also the names of the people whose lives he failed to save…

…

Subconsciously knowing that the pot before him would overflow if he continued to pour water into it, Kaneki stopped the flow of water coming from the kettle's spout and allowed whatever remained to make its way down into the pot, before setting the kettle back down onto the desk. Reaching for a white porcelain cup/dish combination that he had prepared earlier to receive his work.

Taking the pot by its handle with his other, freer hand, the half ghoul poured it into aforementioned cup until it was three-quarters full.

Silently and like he had done so many times over all those months ago, the salt hair picked the cup and dish combination up off the wooden desk by the latter, and made his way over to his awaiting teammate, who was now standing by Ruby and Yang–who were both staring at him with a look that showed both confusion and curiosity.

Ken handed it to the heiress when he finally reached her and unconsciously flashed her _that_ smile-the same one that he'd wear whenever he'd give a customer their order. Catching a glimpse of aforementioned smile in the reflection of the coffee as she took the steaming beverage from him, he briefly remembered how much effort it took for him to be able to use it at will.

The smile couldn't be too forced or too lax, nor could it be too professional or friendly. It took him weeks of practicing in the mirror to get right and even then, it took him even more time to get used to using it in a public setting. It seemed like it would be so easy at first, but he quickly found the opposite to be true.

Actually, it reminded him of his current predicament.

Kaneki, just like he would all those months ago, waited patiently with his arms crossed behind his back as he watched Weiss bring the cup up to her lips. She took a moment to blow on the steaming liquid, before taking a small sip of it. It only took a second longer for him to know her opinion of it.

Pale blue eyes widening, a small smile of satisfaction found its way onto her face as the heiress placed the cup back down onto the dish in her other hand.

"So, what do you think?" Kaneki asked her, although he was partially sure that he knew what she thought of it.

"It's very good, not the best that I've ever had mind you," she stated in a business-like manner, before suddenly stopping, probably to sound a little more dramatic if he had to guess as to why. "It's definitely in the top ten though. Maybe even the top five."

"Wow, I'm impressed, short-stuff," Yang commented, blinking as she did so, using a tone that held a hint of surprise in her voice. "You actually managed to breach the princess' top ten."

"Thank you," he replied while he subconsciously giving the two of them a nod that was demanded of someone of his position, and then turned his attention onto Yang. "Would you two care to try some? I have enough left for everyone."

"Really?" the blonde asked, her tone surprised. "Well…turning down an offer from a friend would be rude so…" she trailed off with a not so subtle, faux reluctance in her voice as she rubbed her chin. "Sure, I'll take a cup!"

"Oh, um… C-could I get a cup too?" Ruby chimed in suddenly.

"Two cups of coffee, coming right up," the white-haired ghoul stated without a second's hesitation, moving back to his desk to prepare his other teammates' orders. Suddenly remembering that there were four members of team RWBY, other than himself, in the room with him, he stopped in his tracks, looked over to where Blake sat on his bed and called out to her, "Hey Blake! Did you want a cup too?"

"Do you happen to have tea?" Was her response. Again, she didn't look up from her book.

"Um… No. I don't think—"

"—Then I'm good."

_Ah, well, I guess that means I get to have a cup then,_ Kaneki thought to himself as he resumed his quest to get said cups, smiling to himself awkwardly. Reaching his desk, he opened the same drawer from earlier and found the three other cups Ozpin had given to him, and set them out onto the desk, lining them up in a straight line so that he could fill them more efficiently.

"Hey Kaneki, did you use to work in a cafe or something?" Ruby asked him as he began distribute the rest of the coffee. "You seem pretty used to this sort of stuff."

"_Pft!_ That's a funny sight," Weiss commented off-handedly as she took another sip of her coffee.

Yang nodded her head. "Yeah, it'd be rather hard to picture short-stuff working a job as boring as being a waiter," she agreed with the heiress, doing so for the first time that the half ghoul's seen.

Letting out a light chuckle, Kaneki made sure to finish filling the last cup of coffee before turning and regarding the blonde's question, "Well, I can't say that I don't understand what you mean." He shrugged as he picked up two of the three cups of coffee and began walking over to Ruby and Yang. "Though, the fact of the matter is that I did work at a cafe for a time."

"Wow. So you're saying that the guy who can kick a beowolf in a single kick used to work at a cafe?" Yang asked no one in particular as she took one of the coffee-filled cups from him. She sounded completely underwhelmed by the fact. "Wow… That's really lame."

"Yang! Don't be rude!" her younger half-sister scolded her older sister before turning back to him, shaking her hands out in front of her embarrassedly. "I-I'm sure that working as a waiter can be a plenty exciting job! Right?"

Ken couldn't hold back the amused snort that came from him. "No, Yang's right. Working there could get pretty boring at times," he affirmed Yang's statement as he gave Ruby her own cup. "I loved working there nonetheless."

Sensing another question rising up inside the young girl, Kaneki immediately began to explain what exactly he loved about the job as he went back to the desk to retrieve his own coffee. "It wasn't your ordinary cafe though." He explained as he walked, "It was the kind of place where you could walk in and feel like your first time, was your hundredth if you get what I mean."

"There were times where the place seemed so peaceful, that I questioned whether not the outside world existed," he continued as he pressed the cup in his hand to a pained smile he hadn't noticed before, tipping it back and taking a sip of the liquid inside before leaning his body weight onto the desk behind him. "Considering what was going on in my life at the time… I suppose that was a good thing."

"Um… What do you mean?" The question left his team leader's mouth as she pulled his mask away from her face, revealing a look of concern. "What was going on at the time?"

Kaneki felt his entire body still the moment that question hit his ears. Cursing to himself silently, he glanced up from the brown liquid in his cup and shifted them around the room. Sure enough, he could feel the same question lingering on the others' lips. The way they were looking at him told him that much.

_Dammit… I said too much,_ he thought to himself in a self-deprecating tone, mentally slapping himself in the forehead for the blunder. _Well, I guess it's too late to back out now… I might as well tell them._

"I'm sure you all probably already know this, but I wasn't born a ghoul…" Kaneki began, stopping for a moment to give the four a chance to stop him if what he was saying was new news to them.

"Yeah, Ozpin told us that you were turned into one by some crazy doctor after you got into an accident with one," Blake summarized on everyone's behalf as she put her book down onto her lap.

Seeing no error in the girl's words, the half ghoul nodded his head and continued his explanation, "As you can probably guess, I didn't take the fact that I had been turned into a flesh-eating monster, that you were raised to hate from birth very well." His dull eyes fell back down to his cup and his reflection inside of it. "When I first found out… I was scared. None of the food I was eating would stay down and I hadn't eaten anything in over a week… I even tried to stabbing myself with a knife to test if it'd be able cut me… It wasn't able to." He took another sip of his coffee. "I was hungry and scared, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to control myself… I couldn't even walk down the street without wanting to tear into someone."

"Thankfully, I was eventually found by the people who ran the cafe. They just so happened to be ghouls and were willing to teach me how to live a peaceful life as one," he began as he attempted to take another sip from his cup, but stopped when he realized that his cup was empty. He let out a small chuckle. "Even then, me still being half-human made it hard for me to feel like I _really_ belonged. So, to have been able to work in a place like that-a place where the lines between human and ghoul were blurred-felt like a godsend to me."

The moment Kaneki finished with his story, he found himself immediately regretting having told it. Putting his cup down on the desk behind him, he looked up and was immediately met with the sight of all four of his teammates sending him pitying looks. Frowning to himself, he immediately moved to shift the topic to something less serious, but was stopped by the sound of the door to his room being suddenly pushed open-an act that caused everyone in the room to jump slightly.

All of them simultaneously turning their heads towards the door, they found Ozpin standing there, looking rather distressed for whatever reason.

"Ah, you're all here. Good," the headmaster began as he used a finger to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I need to talk to you five about something urgent."

"Huh, what is it, Professor Ozpin?" Ruby asked him after taking a couple of moments to regain her bearings.

Ozpin took in a deep breath and answered her question, "Unfortunately, that's not something I can divulge in here, so I'm going to need the five of you to meet in my office in about an hour. I'll explain more there."

Without waiting for a response, the middle-aged headmaster turned on a heel and walked back out into the hallway.

Suddenly stopping, he and looked over his shoulder and added, "And make sure to bring a week's worth of clothing."

The group of five blinked and watched their headmaster turned to his right and walk out of sight. Looks of pure bewilderment spread across their faces.

**-Chapter End-**


	5. Chapter 5: Newfound Nostalgia

Hey guys and welcome to the fifth installment of TG: Remnant, which is now my most highly favored fic ever. Something that I have to thank you guys for because this is honestly the story I've had the most fun writing ever and to see it prospering just makes my heart melt.

Well, sappy stuff aside, this chapter is coming out a couple days later than the two month deadline I had set, but I got it done so I guess it's fine, right?

It's also twelve thirteen-thousand words long and that's a plus, right?

Well, I got nothing more to say, other than I hid some tarot card/number symbolism in this chapter, so first one who finds it gets a virtual cookie or something.

So I guess I'll get this mother started, you know after this mandatory disclaimer.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I don't own either Tokyo Ghoul or RWBY.

**-Chapter 5: Newfound Nostalgia-**

"What do you think the headmaster wants with us?" Ruby asked her teammates as the five of them entered the elevator that served as the only entrance into Ozpin's office together, her tone being one of primarily curiosity with the smallest dash of worry mixed into it, "And I wonder why he wanted us to pack enough clothes to last us a week."

"I think that should be pretty obvious," Weiss answered in a slightly annoyed tone as she put her white suitcase down onto the metal floor of the elevator and then crossed her arms over chest, "He probably wants to send us somewhere for a week."

"Even I can piece together that much Weiss," the young team leader deadpanned, "I'm wondering why he wants to send us somewhere for a week."

"Oh, maybe he's rewarding us and giving us a week off for a vacation!" Yang exclaimed happily, but it was clear from the tone she was using that she was saying this as a joke, "I knew that all of our hard work making short-stuff a respectable member of Beacon Academy would pay off for us eventually."

"For some reason, I can't help doubting that," Blake told her partner before letting out a tired sigh, a wry, contradictory smile crawling onto her lips as she turned her attention onto her team leader, "But if I had to take a guess, I think that it would probably be safe to assume that he wants to send us on some kind of mission, given how distressed he was when he told us to meet with him."

"I guess that makes sense," replied the red-clad fifteen year old with a small nod of her head before turning her head towards the only member of her team to not voice his opinion on the matter, who had a troubled expression plastered all over his pale features as he stared at the metal doors of the elevator through narrowed gray eyes, "What do you think, Kaneki?"

"I think that whatever he wants with us, it has to be pretty urgent," the white-haired ghoul in question stated with absolutely no emotion present in his voice other than a small hint of suspicion, which was so small that it was barely noticeable to the other occupants of the elevator, "He wouldn't have came all the way to the dorms to tell us if it wasn't."

"Y-yeah," she stated, stuttering a tiny bit as she was taken a little off-guard by the sudden appearance of 'Serious Kaneki', which was the name she had given to the entity that occasionally replaced the Kaneki she had grown used to seeing on an everyday basis, who she had dubbed as 'Normal Kaneki'.

It was something that she had noticed during the time she spent with him over the past couple of weeks and to make a long story short, it was something that unnerved her greatly.

'_Seriously, how can someone switch in between two completely different personalities so easily?'_ the young squad leader asked herself as she subconsciously dawned a troubled expression of her own and began to mull through her head in hopes of finding an answer to that question, but was forced to stop when she felt the once rising elevator slowly bring itself to a stop through the soles of her feet.

"Well, whatever Ozpin wants with us, we're about to find out," Blake stated as she moved to exit the elevator with her suitcase in tow.

Without saying a word, the other four members of team RWBY did the same as the bow-wearing teen and all walked into Ozpin's office to find the owner of the office, who was staring out the window that was located behind his back with arms crossed behind his back.

"Good, you're here," the headmaster said as he turned to face the five of them before glancing down at the suitcases they were all carrying, "And I'm assuming those carry the clothes I told you pack, right?"

"Yeah, I checked and everyone should have enough clothes to last us a week," Ruby replied, using an uncharacteristic business-like tone before reverting back into a sheepish tone as she added, "Well, everyone other than Kaneki, he didn't have enough clothes in his closet to last a week unfortunately."

The silver-haired headmaster gave a brief of acknowledgement at her statement, which prompted the red-clad squad leader to ask the question that was probing the mind of everyone in the room.

"So what exactly did you want to see us about, Professor Ozpin?"

The five students of Beacon Academy stared at their headmaster, who closed his eyes and took in a deep breath before re-opening them and opening his mouth to explain the situation.

"As most of you already know," Ozpin began, obviously referring to everyone other than Kaneki when he said 'most of you', "Not every one of Vale's citizens choose to live inside of its walls."

"There are a few who dislike the idea of being confined inside the walls and decide to live outside them," he continued as he stepped out from behind his desk and in front of the five students, "We call the places where a majority of them congregate 'settlements' and as of yesterday, we've lost all forms of contacts with one of those settlements."

Having not expected that last chain of words to come out of his mouth, the five members of team RWBY widened their eyes in shock at their headmaster's words, but Ozpin continued on with the explanation before any of them could question him about what they meant, "Normally, an incident like this wouldn't worry me too much since we have lost contact with settlements before in the past, but I have reason to believe that this is different from the others."

"Really, what makes you say that?" Ruby asked, basically repeating the question that was swimming through the rest of her teammates' heads.

"Well, first off, we've been receiving reports from them over the past couple of weeks detailing increased grimm activity in the area," Ozpin answered solemnly, "None of them were large enough to warrant any concern, but they were large enough to be worth reporting and if couple in the fact that the last of these reports just happened to come through an hour before we lost contact with the settlement, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to assume that the grimm had something to do with sudden cut off."

"But other than that, I don't have much more evidence to prove that something is wrong," he added, sounding frustrated for reasons unknown to the five students, "Or at least, not enough evidence to justify spending taxpayer money on sending out a group of professional hunters out to investigate."

"So I suppose that means you want to send us out to that settlement instead, right?" Kaneki interjected, basically summarizing the all of the information he had gotten out of Ozpin's explanation.

"On a fundamental level, yes," the headmaster stated with a slight nod of his head to confirm his student's words, "That's exactly what I mean to do with the five of you."

"And is it safe to assume that we're going to be staying at this settlement for more than a single night?" the white-haired teen asked only to receive another nod in response, prompting him to ask another question that was running through his head, "Why is that exactly?"

"Simple, even if the grimm didn't cause the communication blackout, I want to make sure that they don't cause any more problems for the people living at the settlement."

"So basically…" the white-haired ghoul trailed off, taking a moment to crack his right index finger before he continued speaking, "... you want us to pull out some weeds?"

"Saying it like that makes it sound a little morbid, but yes, that's essentially what I want you five to do," Ozpin replied with yet another nod of his head before shifting the topic of the conversation completely, "And before any of you ask, yes, I do have permission to send the five of you."

Having been wondering about that herself, Weiss had opened her mouth to ask, but stopped the words from coming out and closed her mouth when she noticed Ozpin address the issue before she even said anything.

"Wait, that doesn't make sense," Blake spoke up suddenly, prompting everyone's attention to shift onto the bow-wearing teen, who proceeded to ask, "Why would the same people who struck down the idea of sending a professional hunter to deal with the problem, be in favor of sending a group of hunters-in-training who've only ever been on one other mission before in the past instead?"

"The answer to that question is also rather simple," Ozpin began to explain, "Employing professionals would cost the government money, money that understandably can't just be thrown around dealing with one man's assumptions."

"So to remedy that issue, I proposed that we send a group of student-hunters, since it would both cost less money since we don't have to pay students and give the selected students valuable experience they could use later on in their careers," he added, his tone matter-of-fact in nature.

"But why us over one of the teams made up of upperclassmen?" Blake continued to question, "I'm sure that they have much more experience dealing with these sorts of things than we do, so it doesn't make sense to me as to why you would want to send a team of first-years instead."

"You're right, it probably would be a smarter move to send a group with more experience," he affirmed, "But unfortunately, I need the upperclassmen teams here just in case if something much more dangerous, and most importantly, something much more than a mere assumption of mine comes up."

Seemingly satisfied by the answer given to her, Blake nodded at her silver-haired headmaster to indicate that she had no more questions that needed to be answered, which prompted him to ask one final question, "Do the rest of you have anymore questions you want to ask me?"

There was a brief stint of silence between the students and the headmaster where the five members of team RWBY looked at each other to see if any of them had something they wanted to ask, but they all shook their heads in unison when they saw that none of them made were going to do so.

"Good, now head down to the hangar, there should be a bullhead waiting for the five of you there," he informed the five of them sternly, "Once you're halfway to the settlement, I'll get in contact and brief you on the rest of the situation."

"Understood, you can count on us, Professor!" Weiss exclaimed as she gave her headmaster a perfectly performed salute, surprising her teammates with just how excited she sounded.

She suddenly turned on a heel and started walking back towards the elevator that had taken them up to the office to begin with. Her teammates, who were still rather shocked by what they had just witnessed, simply watched as she pressed the down button on the console next to the elevator's doors and began waiting patiently for them to open.

"I guess we should follow her, huh?" Ruby stated as she was the first one to break out of her stupor, letting out an awkward chuckle before bounding off towards her white-haired partner.

This prompted her older half-sister to smile cheerily and exclaim as she followed after her, "Alright, let's get this party started!"

Being by far the most skeptical two of the group, Blake and Kaneki glanced over at one another and shot the other a questioning look before they both shrugged and followed after their teammates, who were already starting to pile back into the metal box that would take them back down to ground level.

* * *

Ozpin watched the five members of team RWBY disappear behind the closing metal doors of the elevator with his usual stoic expression before calling out to the figure who had been watching the entire exchange unfold, "You can come out now, Ms. Goodwitch."

His blonde-haired subordinate did as she was told and leapt down from her position up in the rafters of the clocktower. She landed in front of him silently with a clearly troubled expression spread across her sharp features as she turned to face him.

Having been around the woman long enough to know that she wasn't going to say something without his consent, he gave her a small wave of his hand as if to tell her that there was no reason to hold her tongue on the matter.

Knowing exactly what this gesture meant, she immediately proceeded to speak her concerns, "Are you sure that they're ready for a mission of this magnitude?"

"Whatever do you mean?" the headmaster asked, raising a skeptical brow as he feigned ignorance, "This is nothing more than a simple extermination of grimm, I'm sure that even a team with their experience can handle as much."

The veteran huntress simply rolled her at him and retorted, "You and I both know that the people who live at that settlement you're sending them to don't need a group of hunters to help them if it was only grimm, especially with their defenses."

"So until you explain what exactly possessed you to go through the trouble of getting to permission to send them to that settlement," she continued, crossing her arms over her chest before adding, "I have to assume that there must be something much bigger going on that I don't know about."

"Well, truth be told, even I'm not sure what's exactly on the horizon for team RWBY," he explained in his usual emotionless tone, "But I do have an idea as to what might happen and if I'm correct, it's going to be the biggest challenge of their short careers and that's exactly what I'm hoping for."

"Why exactly?" the middle-aged huntress inquired, "As a fellow educator, I can somewhat understand you wanting to challenge your students, but don't you think it's a little too soon to expect them to deal with something of that magnitude?"

"Even without Mr. Kaneki's sudden inclusion, they've only been a team for a couple of months," she followed, a hint of concern leaking into her voice as she spoke, "Do you seriously expect them to-"

"You misunderstand my intentions Ms. Goodwitch," Ozpin cut in, prompting his subordinate to cease all speech immediately.

"You were required to attend weapon crafting class back when you were still in academy, were you not?" he questioned, a question to which she nodded to in response, "Do you remember what they told us about how a blacksmith hardens the metal they put in their weapons?"

"No, admittedly I don't remember much from weapon crafting class all those years ago," she answered before going into an explanation as to why she had forgotten, "Since my weapons don't need such maintenance to keep in pristine condition, I haven't found much need for the information taught to me in that class so I simply forgot it over time."

"Don't worry, even I don't remember every lesson that was taught to me during my academy days," the middle-aged hunter replied reassuringly, "But that's straying from the point I was trying to make."

"And that point being that a blacksmith hardens metal by first dousing it in flames, which is exactly what I'm trying to do with team RWBY," he explained, "I feel as though the relationships they have with one another will strengthen by putting them into a position where they will be challenged more than they ever have been in the past."

"That still doesn't answer my question though," she pointed out, "Why exactly are you going through the trouble of all that when you could receive the same result by having them grow at a similar pace as the other teams?"

"To put it bluntly, I'm afraid of what might happen to Mr. Kaneki in the future," he answered bluntly, "The situation he's currently in is an extremely volatile one and I feel as though it's only a matter of time before we reach our first bump in the road."

He stopped to take in a breath before continuing, "So you could say that my attempt at strengthening the bonds between team RWBY is a precaution to make sure that someone other than myself has his back when we do reach that first bump."

That answer didn't seem to sit very well with Goodwitch, but if she did have any protests she didn't make the known to him and simply gave a reluctant nod in response before turning towards the elevator to make her leave.

* * *

"Man, I can't wait to get this mission started!" Yang exclaimed, clearly excited as she paced around the interior of the Bullhead that was carrying them to their destination, "It's been so long since we've had actual action that the moment we land, I just want to run out into the forest and start punching anything with a face!"

"While I can't agree with the last part of what you said," Weiss chimed in suddenly, "I have to admit that I'm also rather excited about finally going on an actual mission."

"I mean, think about it, we're the first team of our year to be sent on a mission without being accompanied by a professional hunter," she continued as her usual stern tone gave way to genuine excitement, "If we do this right, we'd easily be considered the top team of our class."

Ruby let out an awkward chuckle at her teammates' reasonings for being so excited before giving one of her own, "I'm really just excited that I get to go a week without having to go through one of Professor Port's boring lectures."

"Yeah, I understand how you feel," Yang nodded as she groaned loudly, "Seriously, how is it even possible for someone to make a class about fighting boring?"

As three of the five members of team RWBY stood in the center of the bullhead's cargo hold chatting away excitedly about what the mission they were being sent on entailed, the remaining two members were off to the side of the cargo hold sitting down right in front of the side door of the bullhead together in complete silence.

One watching his teammates as they conversed. The other silently reading one of the numerous books she had brought for the trip.

"Well, they're rather excited," Kaneki stated offhandedly, hoping that it would be enough to spark a conversation between him and the dark-haired girl sitting on the floor next to him, who had spent the majority of the nearly hour long flight reading.

Normally, he wouldn't have bat an eye at the this kind of behaviour since he had seen her do the same thing almost everyday he had known her, but he could tell that there was something was different by the way her eyes kept retracing the lines of text on the page she was reading.

"Yeah, that should be expected considering this is our first real mission together as a team," Blake replied without looking up from her book, her tone still as dry as it usually was.

"You don't sound very excited about it," he began, taking a short glance her way before returning his gaze back onto his three conversing teammates and finished his train of thought, "Something about the mission not sitting quite right with you?"

"So you noticed, huh?" she asked him before she let out a sigh and placed the book she was reading page-down onto her lap so she could face him.

"Well, it was pretty obvious when I noticed that you hadn't turned a single page in your book for over a half an hour," he explained, flashing her a wry smirk of amusement before asking the question that had been plaguing his mind since he first noticed her uneasiness, "So, what's got you so worried?"

"To put it bluntly, there's a chance, albeit a very slim one, that the settlement were going to was overrun by the grimm and I just can't help thinking that we're going to be walking into a slaughter," she explained to him in a solemn tone.

He was half-tempted to say something to reassure her that nothing was wrong and that everyone in the settlement was alive, but ultimately thought better of it, knowing that it wouldn't do her any good in the long run.

Like it or not, the four girls were going to become professional hunters at some point and they needed to be able to think such things without being too greatly affected by it. He didn't want them to become emotionless robots like himself, but he also didn't want them making decisions based solely on what they felt, which meant that he couldn't say anything to reassure her about the settlement's safety.

"Well, that's true, but remember we only found out about this an hour ago," he stated in an equally solemn tone, "So if what you're saying is true and the entire village is indeed destroyed, just take solace in the fact that you really couldn't have done anything to help them to begin with."

"That's awfully reassuring," she replied, her tone ripe with sarcasm.

The white-haired ghoul let out a scoff and countered, "Hey, I'm an emotionless robot whose only food sources are other people and grimm, what exactly did you expect me to say?"

"Just that," the bow-wearing teen replied with a slight smile beginning to grow on the corner of her lips, "But truth be told, that's one of the things that I like about you, Kaneki."

"You're honest and you always say what's on your mind," she continued, using the same dry tone that he once had trouble deciphering, but now had a decent enough read on to tell that she was being both serious and joking when she spoke, "Even if it makes everyone around you uncomfortable."

He let out a quiet, mirth-filled laugh at that and stated, "I don't know about the honest part, the part about me making everyone uncomfortable sounds pretty accurate though."

The statement elicited a soft giggle from the girl and caused that smile of hers to grow a fraction bigger, which effectively destroyed the tense atmosphere that their conversation had created around them and in turn caused a rather peaceful atmosphere to slowly envelope the two of them in its place.

Neither of them spoke after that. They just remained completely silent and basked in the serenity that had surrounded them just like they did on the day after Kaneki first arrived in Remnant, which didn't surprise either of them because it had happened to them so many times in the past couple of weeks that it could be classified as a common occurrence for them.

Hell, they probably spent more time sitting next to each other in silence than they did actually talking to one another, which probably could've been considered a negative thing by people who didn't quite understand what the silence between the two of them entailed.

Their form of silence wasn't the same kind that had become associated with dysfunctional relationships by modern day society. It was the kind of silence that could only be achieved when two people really enjoyed one another's presence, which probably came to the surprise of no one considering the fact that they had so many things in common.

For example, they both shared a rapid love for all forms of literature and that would show when the two of them spent hours discussing the central themes and their overall opinions of the books they were reading, which so happened to be one of the few situations where they would actively talk to the other in length. These discussions also happened frequently enough that other people began to call them a book club of two, but that was beyond the point.

The point being that they shared so many common interests that it only made sense that they would be able to learn to enjoy each other's presence despite the lack of communication.

"_Attention Team RWBY, this is your pilot speaking,_" said the pilot of the bullhead through the intercom suddenly, drawing the attention of said hunters-in-training towards the doorway that lead to the cockpit of their flying vessel.

"_We are approximately thirty miles out from our target and will be reaching it within ten minutes, I advise that the five of you begin…_" the pilot trailed off suddenly, which caused a spike of concern to run through the five teens, but that concern immediately turned into shock when they heard him scream on the top of his lungs, "_INCOMING, BRACE FOR IMPACT!_"

But before any of them could react to the pilot's warning, something slammed right into the side door the two bookworms of team RWBY were sitting in front of, causing a large enough explosion that it actually ripped a large hole in the metal door.

Having been sitting directly in front of the door while it was being hit, Blake and Kaneki were the ones to take the brunt of the explosion and were sent sprawling down onto the floor as a result.

Still reeling from the momentum of the hit the bullhead had suffered, the pilot tried desperately to regain control of the now rightward-tilting airship by pulling the controls hard to the left, causing it to tilt hard in the same direction.

Ruby, Weiss, and Yang were knocked off balance by the sudden shift in the floor's angle, but they were able to regain their balance almost immediately since they had all been standing when it had happened.

Unfortunately for Blake and Kaneki, who had both been knocked down onto the floor by the explosion, began sliding towards the newly-made hole in the bullhead's door.

* * *

Reflexively knowing that he would only have seconds before he would slide out of the airship, Kaneki released one of his kagune and stabbed it into the floor to stop what might've turned into a rather painful experience for him. But as soon as he himself stopped, he caught a glimpse of Blake sliding out the hole and grabbing onto the edge of the bullhead from out of the corner of his eye.

His protective nature flared as he saw this and before he could even think about what he was doing, he removed his kagune from the floor and used it to pull himself towards the hole by stabbing it into the portion of wall that was directly above hole in the door, shaping the tip into a hook as it punched through to the other side of the wall and retracting the predatory organ back into his body.

The resulting momentum sent him flying halfway out of the airship just in time to see Blake's fingers lose the last of their grip and begin plummeting towards the forest floor several feet below them. He reached for her arm as she fell and came away just fingertips from grabbing it, but he was unfortunately unable to reach it in time and she began to fall.

'_Dammit!'_ he cursed to himself as he sent himself completely over the edge after her with his kagune still hooked into the wall.

Now plummeting face first towards the ground in pursuit of an also falling Blake, the white-haired ghoul straightened his entire body into a line to decrease the drag on his body and in turn increase the speed he was falling at, which had caused the distance in between them to decrease drastically in a matter of only seconds.

'_A little bit closer...'_ he thought to himself as he began to reach out for the falling form of his teammate with his right arm.

Fairly confident that he would be able to reach her before he ran out of RC cells to feed into his kagune, he angled his arm so that it would eventually go past her and when it did, he wrapped it around the upper part of her body and pulled her close to his own.

"KANEKI?!" he could just barely hear her yell out in shock as he wrapped his other arm around the small of her back to make sure that he had a firm and equal grip of her for what he was going to do next.

Knowing that it would be difficult for her to hear with all of the air rushing past them, Kaneki screamed his next words out as loud as he could, "HOLD ON!"

She did as he told her and wrapped her arms around her, which prompted him to harden the RC cells in his kagune to stop their freefall, but the pitch black predatory organ snapped the moment their weight started to pull against it.

'_Well, that didn't work,'_ he deadpanned to himself mentally as he put his plan B into action, '_Probably shouldn't have relied on just one anyways.'_

Knowing that he would have to do what he was going to do quickly with the canopy fastly approaching, he turned himself in midair so that his back was facing the ground and released all eight of his kagune the moment he felt leaves start to brush against his back, sending them shooting out as far in every direction as he could in hopes of catching the trunks of a few trees to help slow their fall.

Fortunately, six of his eight kagune actually did manage to hit a couple of trees and took off a portion of their total momentum, but they too snapped after a second of being forced to endure the stress of catching the energy their fall had created.

'_Okay, that should've slowed us down enough to where the impact won't be fatal,'_ the artificial ghoul thought to himself as he braced for said impact, '_But it's definitely still going to-'_

He would've finished that train of thought, but a wave of intense pain that felt like the entirety of his back had been smothered with rubbing alcohol and then set ablaze forced him to stop. That feeling then spread to the rest of his body when he became almost hyper aware of the bones the impact had broken. Hell, he could even feel that a few of them had managed to lodge themselves into his internal organs somehow.

The pain then continued to spread to the back of his head, which had whipped back into something hard the moment he had impacted. However, the pain that he was feeling now wasn't the same pain he had felt earlier.

This pain was quick and only lasted for a second before it disappeared completely, something he attributed to the fact that he had lost all consciousness the moment that second had ended, but before he faded in unconsciousness.

He could've swore he heard an unfamiliar voice say something along the lines of, "_Sorry about this."_

* * *

At first, the only thing Blake could feel was an uneven hard surface underneath her, which initially lead her to believe that she was lying on a pile of rocks. That assumption was immediately disproved however, when she noticed that whatever she lying on was moving up and down ever so slightly.

'_Oh, that's right, I fell out of the bullhead and Kaneki tried to save me,'_ she recollected as she opened her eyes to find that she was indeed lying directly on top of her eyepatch-wearing teammate with her head placed directly in the center of his chest.

She lifted her head up off said teammate's chest and looked down at him and immediately frowned at what she saw.

There lying underneath her in a small crater that had probably been created by their impact was one completely unconscious Ken Kaneki and from what she could see, he didn't seem to be injured at all, but that didn't say much about his actual condition since she had seen him regenerate from getting impaled clean through the stomach before.

Knowing that he probably wasn't going anywhere any time soon, the bow-wearing teen pushed herself up off of him and looked around to get a gauge of their current surroundings.

She was currently standing in the middle of a forest that was absolutely thick with trees, so thick that almost no sunlight broke through the leafy canopy above them at all. But right when she was about to cast her senses out to get a better sense of the danger in the area around her, a soft vibrating feeling coming from one of her pockets caught her attention.

Already knowing that it was one of her teammates contacting her through her scroll, she reached into said pocket and found that it was indeed one of her teammates, or to be more specific Ruby, calling her. She accepted the call and the thin metal bar extended out to reveal an even thinner screen that displayed Ruby's concerned expression.

"Blake!" her team leader exclaimed the moment she popped up on screen, "Oh thank goodness, you're okay."

"Yeah, I'm pretty much okay," Blake replied in her usual dry tone, letting out a soft sigh before she continued speaking, "Though, I don't think I can say the same for Kaneki."

"Don't worry, he's alive," she added when she noticed Ruby's expression turn concerned, "But I don't think he's going to be going anywhere any time soon in his condition."

"Why, w-what exactly happened to him?" the young teen asked, her expression of concern softening, but was still definitely present.

The bow-wearing teen angled her scroll's camera towards Kaneki's unconscious form and explained, "He used his body to shield me from the impact of the fall and probably got knocked as a result."

"Oh, then what do you want to do now?" Ruby asked, "We can turn back to come get you guys if you want."

"No, you shouldn't waste the time, especially when there are a good amount of people that could be in danger as of right now," Blake answered.

"For now, you three should go on ahead to the settlement and I'll just wait here for Kaneki to wake up," she continued to explain, "I'll be sure to get in contact when he does and we can proceed from there."

"Got it," the teenage team leader began with an apprehensive nod of affirmation, "Be careful out there."

With that, Ruby's pale face disappeared from the screen, which prompted Blake to deactivate the device and put it back inside her pocket. She then turned her gaze back onto her unconscious ghoul teammate and found that a small frown had crawled onto his face at some point during her conversation with Ruby.

'_A nightmare maybe?'_ she asked herself as she stared at her teammate's unconscious form, but her attention was stolen away when she noticed a faint rustling sound coming from the surrounding treeline.

Since she already knew that there were grimm in the area, the sound put the bow-wearing teen on edge and prompted her to reach for Gambol Shroud, which had been hanging from a magnetic sheet of metal on her back the entire time.

Normally, she would've began moving into a position where she could ambush whatever was watching them from the trees, but she refrained from doing so since she knew that it would put Kaneki in danger unnecessarily.

'_He just had to jump out of the bullhead after me, didn't he?'_ she grumbled to herself mentally as her amber eyes scanned the brush for any sign of movement, finding her teammate's actions to be extremely unnecessary since she had already come up with an idea to slow her fall long before he had grabbed her in midair.

She appreciated the sentiment behind the act, but it really ended up just causing her more problems than it solved. Her fighting style didn't necessarily require her to be alone for it to be effective, but she highly doubted that having to keep Kaneki's safety in account throughout an entire fight would be helping its efficiency much either.

Her concern over the fact didn't mean that she wasn't confident in her ability to actually do so however. Truth be told, she thought it to be nothing more than a slight complication, but she would be lying if she said that it wouldn't affect how she dealt with whatever was watching them at all.

For example, she would have to make sure that it got nowhere near Kaneki, which meant that she would have to limit the area the fight took place in to everywhere around the crater he was lying in. That in itself didn't seem too hard of an act at first glance, but controlling the movement of an opponent was actually a much harder task than most people thought.

More often than not, one would need to be superior to their opponent in terms of skill and intelligence to openly control their movements. She was thankful that whatever was watching her out in the brush was a grimm because it was astronomically easier to best a grimm in those terms than it was an actual person.

Almost as if it was acting on que, whatever was watching her crawled out of its hiding place in the brush and Blake found herself to be less than impressed by what she found. To put it bluntly, it was just another beowolf.

She says this because there was nothing remarkably noteworthy about it. It looked to be of average size and weight, and it didn't even seem to have any scars that would indicate that it had gone through and survived countless battles in the past, but complaining about its mundanity was the last thing on her mind.

What was on her mind was the fact that she couldn't underestimate the creature despite how normal it looked, knowing that even a massive well-trained and well-equipped army could be defeated by a small force of guerilla fighters if they were not taking the fight seriously.

The Battle of Fort Castle was proof enough of that fact. And so, instead of relaxing from the sight of the unremarkable grimm, she felt herself tense up even more as she drew gambol shroud from its magnetic sheath and pointed it towards the beowolf with both hands grasped around its hilt.

The beowolf let out a guttural growl at her as its shoulders bounced up and down in anticipation for their coming clash. Blake simply stared back at it, completely unfazed by the grimm's attempt at intimidation.

Five seconds passed and neither of them moved, but their staredown was broken when the beowolf had gotten impatient and charged at her with reckless abandon on all fours. She remained completely still as it bounded towards her, not even reacting when it pounced at her with its claws bare.

It slashed at her, but instead of making contact with her flesh like it had expected, it found that its claws passed clean through her almost as if she was made completely out of air. And before it could even comprehend that she had moved out of the way at the last second and what it had hit was just one of her shadow clones, she was already standing behind it and slashing the back of its knees out from under it with gambol shroud with a single strike.

Not wanting it to even have the time to let out a yelp in pain, she raised her blade up intending to cleave the beowolf's head clean off, but stopped herself when she heard a low grumbling noise coming from the crater Kaneki was lying in and opted to force it into a supine position with a kick dead center to its back.

'_I can't believe I'm doing this…'_ she thought to herself, shaking her head in disbelief as she began to unwind the black ribbon that was tied around her right forearm.

* * *

Hunger. That was the first thing Kaneki felt when his consciousness returned to him.

The hunger. Oh, the hunger.

It was gnawing away at him, almost like it was a centipede crawling through his head.

Food… he needed food...

Any food at all would do. He didn't need it to taste good, he just needed it to be food so he could sate this feeling of dread that was gnawing away at his insides.

If he was hungry, he wouldn't have the energy to fight and if he didn't have the energy to fight, he wouldn't be able to protect the people he cared about and if he couldn't protect the people he cared about, there was a chance they could be hurt.

'_Need to get up…'_ he thought to himself as he rolled himself onto his stomach, '_Need to find food…'_

He placed the palms of his hands on the dirt ground under him and began to push against it. His arms gave out from under him momentarily when a surge of pain ran through him as he tried to do so, but he was able to catch himself before his face met the dirt once again, a strangled laugh escaping from his lips in response to the pain.

'_One needs strength to protect…'_ he reminded himself as he pushed himself up onto his feet, stumbling forwards momentarily when they too almost gave way under his weight, '_... and the body needs food to produce that strength so…'_

The artificial ghoul could feel his lips morph into a wide toothy smile as his next words slipped out of his mouth in an almost sing-song type tone, "**Where, oh where, can I find some food?**"

In hopes of finding a scent trail that would lead him towards food, he took a deep breath in through his nostrils and almost immediately picked up on something that smelled extremely familiar to him. He turned his head towards it and found something that made his already wide smile grow even wider somehow.

There, he found the food he was searching for, wrapped up in a little black bow. The sight made another bout of strangled laughter to emerge from his mouth as he placed his thumb over his index finger and pressed down on it, causing a crack through the air.

* * *

'_Note to self, make sure Kaneki is well-fed at all times,'_ Blake thought to herself as she watched the white-haired young man in question tear through the body of the beowolf she had tied up to a tree for him to eat like a man who hadn't eaten something in days, a small frown forming on her features as she did so.

It upset her to think that the man she was watching eat a beowolf alive was the same person who had just taken the brunt of a several story fall to protect her were the same people. A part of her wondered if her companion was suffering from some form of multiple personality disorder due to the fact that the two sides were so different.

One was made up of an overall serious young man who at times could be benevolent to the point of being completely adorable, a quality that was only amplified by his still somewhat baby-faced appearance and the sheepish smile that would pop up from time to time whenever he got embarrassed.

Then there was the other side of him, the side that, like that smile of his, would pop up from time to time. It appeared much less frequently, which was quite a big understatement given the fact that she had only ever seen it once, now twice, but what she saw differed so much from the ordinary that it couldn't help but etch itself into her mind.

His normally serious demeanor would become extremely flippant and wild. His benevolence would turn into blood thirst, and his small, endearing smile would become wide and crazed. It was almost as if that side of him was the living embodiment of some sort of insanity that he kept pushed down to the very bottom of his subconscious.

'_Well, hopefully that isn't the case,'_ she thought to herself, knowing full well what that would've meant.

Just as she thought that, the bow-wearing teen noticed that the speed at which Kaneki was eating had begun to slow.

Taking this as a sign that he was coming close to reaching his limit, she emerged from her hiding place in a nearby cluster of bushes and waited for him to slow down to a stop. And when he did, she took note of the fact that the crazed expression he was wearing as he tore through his meal had completely disappeared, leaving the same emotionless shell of a face she had seen him wear after he ate that deathstalker all those weeks back in its wake.

"You looked like you enjoyed your meal," she told him in her usual dry tone, half-joking and half-serious.

"Well, looks can be deceiving," he replied in his usual emotionless tone as he stood up from his previous kneeling position, not taking his eyes off of the body of his meal as it disintegrated into nothing, "The thing tasted like the guts of a half-rotted fish, but all of the grimm taste that way so I'm kind of used to it by now."

She furrowed her brow in confusion and asked, "If they taste so bad then why bother eating them?"

"You prefer I eat the alternative then?" he countered as he lifted a pale, blood-covered hand up to his lips to wipe away a drop of black grimm blood that was running down his already blood-covered chin.

"No, but why do I feel like there's more to that answer than just that?"

"That's because there is," Kaneki began as he turned his head so that he was looking right at her, a small self-loathing smile forcing its way past his once emotionless exterior before he continued, "Power, I eat the grimm because their blood is supposed to make mine more powerful."

"The same rule applies with ghouls like myself," he added immediately after he finished his previous sentence, "Meat tastes just as bad though."

"But wait, wouldn't saying that imply that you've eaten other ghouls before?" she asked him through narrowed eyes, her voice having an intensity it didn't have earlier.

He let out a scoff at her words and answered with, "I'm not very proud of the fact, but yeah, I have, more times than I can remember actually."

"So you're basically just admitting to the fact that you're a cannibal?" Blake questioned, completely shocked that her teammate could say what he just said so lightly.

"I am half human too so I'm technically considered a cannibal no matter what I eat," he countered, a pang of guilt stabbing her heart when she realized the implications of what he had just said.

Ozpin hadn't told them much about Kaneki's past during the conversation they had about him after his initiation, but the headmaster did explain to them that he hadn't started out as a ghoul. That he was turned into a ghoul by some crazy doctor after some accident that wasn't ever elaborated upon.

She couldn't imagine what it would've felt like to wake up one day and learn that she needed to eat her own kind, the kind she spent her entire life up until that point living as, to survive. The thought alone reminded her of the setup to some tragedy novel.

"So I figured that if I was going to become a cannibal that I might as well eat the meat that made me stronger," he continued on before she could voice her opinion on the matter, his voice laced with what she could identify as bitter amusement as he cast his gaze down towards the ground, "Though looking back at it now, I'm starting to wonder if that was really the best course of action to take."

The bow-wearing teen felt the strong urge to ask about what he had meant by that well up inside her, but she decided that it was best to hold her tongue for the time being, especially since he was acting the way he was. He wasn't completely right of mind at the moment, she could tell by the way he was speaking.

The words that were coming out of his mouth were worrying to no end and the Kaneki she had gotten to know over the past couple of months would've never have said anything that would've made her or their teammates worry, and even if he did, he would've immediately waived those concerns off like nothing was wrong.

He was someone who would rather brush his problems off to the side so that he was the only one who had to deal with them. She didn't know if it was for his own sake or for theirs yet, but she did know that person wasn't the same one that was currently standing before her.

The Kaneki she was looking at was vulnerable, probably the most vulnerable he's ever been, and she wasn't one to take advantage of a friend when they were vulnerable. So for now, she would hold her tongue and wait for a better time to ask the question.

The dark-haired teen counted the seconds that passed as she waited for her teammate to break out of his reverie. The moment the number in her head reached six, Kaneki returned his attention back onto her and began to make his way over to her.

"Thanks for the food, by the way," he told her, flashing her a small, sad smile as he reached his right hand out towards her, prompting her to look down and find him holding the ribbon she used to tie up the beowolf in the palm of his open hand.

"It may not have seemed like much at the time, but I don't know what would've happened if I had stayed in that condition for too long," he once again continued on before she could respond, his voice laced with both uncertainty and concern, "But given my past track record, I might've even attacked you and trust me when I say that hurting you is one of the last things I ever want to do so… thank you."

'_Guess, it was a little presumptuous of me to assume that he would recover that quickly,'_ she thought to herself as she processed the words he had just spoke to her, '"_Trust me when I say that hurting you is one of the last things I ever want to do."'_

Truthfully, Blake had never had those words uttered to her before in her entire life, but what she lacked in real life experience, she more than made up for with her experience in literature.

The phrase he had just said to her was a common one that she had seen authors use in different ways.

Sometimes, it was used by one character to reassure the other that they would've never hurt them to begin with. Other times, the phrase was used in an ironic sense, usually right when a character was about to hurt another. And every once in awhile, she would stumble across the author who only used the phrase to help strengthen whatever relationship the two characters that were involved had.

This time, however, felt like one of those times where a character was in a position where he could hurt another and was genuinely afraid of doing so. Something that even someone like her, who only knew the very basics of Kaneki's personality, could see him doing without much difficulty.

The sentiment behind those words managed to both touch and trouble her at the same time.

On one hand, it meant that he thought her as someone close enough to him that he feared hurting her, but it also meant that he lacked confidence in his ability to control himself whenever he entered that state.

Thankfully for her, whatever bloodlust his temporary bout of insanity created inside of him had been quelled by his most recent meal and he was almost back to acting like his usual self. The only thing that remained inconsistent was his mouth, which was currently spewing things it shouldn't have left and right.

'_I should probably say something to-'_ she began, but that train of thought cut itself off when she felt something warm and oddly sticky wrap itself lightly around her right hand.

Her eyes immediately shot down towards said appendage and found that it had been enclosed upon by Kaneki's left hand, which was still smeared with the blood of the beowolf he had just devoured.

"What exactly do think you're doing?" the bow-wearing teen reflexively asked as she stared at the hand that was covering the back of hers, being somewhat surprised as to how his blood-covered fingers felt against her skin.

They were rough and heavily calloused, something that most people probably wouldn't have expected due to his rather bookish and soft-looking exterior. Then again, most people probably wouldn't have expected him to have the ability to sprout deadly tentacles from his back either and he could do that too so, it was probably safe to assume that she should never just assume anything with him.

She really didn't know what exactly she expected his hands to feel like, something that she attributed to the fact that she had never put too much thought into the idea to begin with, but for some reason she couldn't help but feel a little surprised by how they actually felt.

"Returning your ribbon," he deadpanned in response as he placed said ribbon into the hand he was holding onto, releasing it from his grip the moment he finished the task, "Why, what did you think I was doing?"

That statement prompted Blake to blink at her white-haired teammate and that prompted him to blink right back at her, silently wondering to herself as she did so, '_What exactly did I think he was doing?'_

Before she could even start contemplating an answer to that question, her attention was drawn away by a loud ringing noise that was emanating from one of her pockets.

Recognizing it as the 'call incoming' tone of her scroll, she reached down into the pocket the ringing was coming from and pulled out the offending object for what was the second time in the past ten minutes to find that Ruby was calling her again.

'_That's odd, I thought that I told her that I would call her,'_ she noted mentally as she accepted the call from her team leader, '_Knowing her, she's probably just worried-'_

"Why, hello there," greeted an unfamiliar voice as an unfamiliar face popped up on her scroll's screen, causing her train of thought to grind to a screeching halt.

The voice and the appearance of the person staring back at her was unmistakably feminine in nature. She had long multi-colored hair that was shaded a light pink with white highlights on one half and a chocolate brown on the other, which were coincidentally the same two colors of her heterochromatic eyes.

From what she could tell off first glance alone, she looked to be a couple of years older than her. Blake guessed somewhere around Kaneki's age, which would be somewhere around her late teens and early twenties.

"Ah, you must be one of the ones who fell out of that bullhead I had my men shoot earlier," the woman began with a cordial tone that completely betrayed the nature of the words she was speaking, which prompted the bow-wearing teen to narrow her amber eyes at the woman suspiciously, "Tell me, what happened to the other one who fell out? Nothing bad, I hope."

"Who-" Blake began to ask, but the woman cut her off before she could finish her question.

"Who am I? What did I do with the girl this scroll belonged to?" the unknown woman asked in a way that came across as mocking despite the fact that she was still speaking cordially, "You were going to ask me those questions, right?"

"Couldn't come up with something more original, huh?" she added, her tone gaining a small amount of disappointment to it, something that irritated Blake to no end, "Well, whatever, it's not like originality matters much in the end, so I guess I'll let you slide just this once."

The dark-haired girl simply frowned at the tri-color haired woman in response, prompting said woman to state, "Oh, would you please stop pouting, I was only kidding around y'know."

"You're teammates are completely fine," she continued on in her faux-cordial tone, "Well, at the very least, they were the last I checked. That might've changed though."

"What did you do to them?" Blake asked through clenched teeth as she fought the down the urge to snap at the woman, knowing that was the reaction she wanted.

"Me?" she gasped incredulously, "I swear to you that I didn't do anything to them, though I can't quite say the same for my boss and his men."

"If it makes you feel better, they didn't go down without a fight, I think it took telling them that we have an entire settlement of people serving as our hostages for them to surrender," she added as a mocking smile began to spread across her lips, "Pity that my boss wanted them alive, I would've loved to have tested how good they really were, especially that blonde-haired one with the unnecessarily revealing clothing and overly loud mouth. She looked like she could be taken down a peg or two, don'tcha think?"

The bow-wearing teen clenched her hands into fists as the anger that had been building up inside of her throughout the entirety of their conversation skyrocketed to new heights. She knew that the woman was intentionally trying to get her riled up, but there was just something in the way the woman spoke that got on her very last nerves.

It felt like every word that came out of that woman's mouth was spoken with nothing but the intent of belittling her and to make matters worse, she did it with the most patronizing and contradictory voice Blake had ever heard.

'_Stay calm,'_ she told herself as she took a deep breath in through her nostrils, '_Don't give her the satisfaction of seeing you get angry.'_

"So what do you want?" she asked the woman on screen in what she hoped was a calm tone, "You went through the trouble of calling me, so you must've wanted something from me, right?"

"Nope, not really," the multi-color haired woman replied bluntly, "Just wanted to see how'd someone react when I told them that we were holding their friends hostage and now that I have seen it, I don't think there's any need to keep talking to you so..."

"... bye~" she finished while she smiled at her with one of the most mocking smiles she had ever seen, waving one of her fingerless-gloved hands at the bow-wearing member of team RWBY before ending the call and disappearing from her screen completely.

Blake let out a frustrated growl as she reached her free hand up to massage her newly aching temple while internally groaning to herself, '_You have got to be-'_

Once again, before she could even finish that train of thought, she was interrupted by the familiar sound of someone cracking their finger. Remembering that she wasn't the only person who was present for the conversation and that Kaneki had most likely heard the entirety of it, she snapped her eyes up and away from the empty screen of her scroll so she could gauge his reaction to the situation they were presented with.

What she found was on par with what she expected from him, well mostly. She said mostly because she expected him to wear a troubled expression, which he did, but she could tell that there was something more to it than that.

He had that same look as when she would find him staring off into space blankly, making it seem like he had absolutely no idea that there was a world outside the thoughts that were swimming around his head.

Getting completely lost in his own thoughts wasn't something that was uncommon for the white-haired ghoul, but the look in his eyes told her that this time was something out of the ordinary.

Usually when he spaced out, his dull gray eyes would somehow become even duller, but this time there was a confusion and some other emotion she couldn't identify mixed in with the blankness.

Naturally, seeing her teammate in such a state caused her to worry, but any concern she had for the young man was dashed when she remembered his reaction to her falling out of the bullhead just a few minutes ago.

He had thrown himself out of a moving airship without a single second of hesitation, which told her that he was one of those people who put the sakes of others before his own, and that probably meant that the reason why he had that look on his face was because he was worried about the others' safety.

Knowing from past experience that he wasn't going to snap out of the trance he was in any time soon without some push from her, she waved a hand a couple of inches from his face and called out to him, "Hey Kaneki, you alright?"

The moment she finished saying those words, the young half-ghoul seemingly blinked himself out of his trance and back into reality.

"Um, y-yeah, I'm fine," he reassured shakily as he reached his left hand up to cup his chin for some reason that was completely unknown to her.

'_Why is he cupping his chin like that?'_ she asked herself as she stared at the offending hand with slightly narrowed eyes, '_Could it be some sort of tell that he has when he lies?'_

After putting some thought into it, she found that her theory did make sense. His earlier attempt at reassuring her that he was okay was an obvious lie on his part and other than it just being a tell, there was absolutely no need for him to do something like that with his hand given the context of the situation.

A scratch or a simple tap on the chin, she could understand, but she couldn't find a single reason as to why he would cup his chin at that exact moment.

'_I could just be being paranoid, but I should probably keep my eyes out for that in the future,'_ she noted mentally right when she heard Kaneki let out an awkward chuckle, prompting her to turn her attention away from his hand back onto his face, where she found him smiling at her awkwardly while he scratched the back of his head in a similar manner.

"Look at me letting myself space out like that while the others are in danger," he mumbled himself in a self-deprecating manner, letting out a tired sounding sigh before he shook his head and returned to his usual stern expression.

"Alright, so what do you think we should do?" he asked, his voice now mimicking his expression.

"Well before we do anything, we have to figure out where exactly they're holding the others," she replied as she reactivated her scroll and began scrolling through menu after menu, looking for a certain setting that would do just that, "Something that shouldn't be too hard considering we have locators built into our scrolls."

"Is there a possibility they might already know that?" Kaneki followed up as he raised a questioning eyebrow at her, "They might be using the signals to lead us into a trap or one of the others' scrolls to track us."

"Yeah, they probably already know about the locators and they're probably tracking our signals as we speak," Blake conceded, "So as of the moment, we don't have many advantages over them, but I think I have a way of turning things to our favor."

The eyebrow he had raised earlier remained that way and he asked the obvious question, "Alright, what do you suggest we do then?"

* * *

Kaneki glanced down at the screen of his scroll and frowned at what it displayed. There, on said screen, were five differently positioned dots that were colored one of two ways: blue or red, blue representing the location of his scroll and red representing his teammates'.

Two of the five dots were positioned dead center of the screen, one shined a dull blue and the other shined a bright red. The three remaining dots were huddled close together and formed a bright red cluster directly to the north of the two dots in the center.

"You ready to go?" asked the creator of the plan he had agreed to follow as she crouched down next to him to his left, her scroll in one hand and her weapon in the other.

"As ready as I'll ever be," he answered curtly before he reached a free hand out to her as a gesture for her to proceed onto the first part of the plan.

She immediately understood the gesture and placed her scroll into his hand before saying to him, "Be careful while you're in there."

He nodded and she scampered off into the shadows, where she would take care of her part of the plan.

The plan that she had come up with earlier and the one he had agreed to follow was a relatively simple one. He would go right up to where the locator said his captured teammates were and spring any traps the enemy had put in place so he could gain as much attention from his enemy as he possibly could.

As he did that, Blake would discreetly capture one of the enemy's men during all of the commotion and interrogate them as to where they were holding the hostages. She would then proceed to move towards that location and liberate the hostages, including their teammates, something that she claimed to be able to do without alarming a single person to her presence.

Once she finished that, she and the others would head over to his location and assist him with fighting whatever enemy he happened to be facing.

Like he said earlier, the plan was a simple one, which it had to be considering the lack of resources and manpower they had to work with. It also relied heavily on their ability to get their designated task done.

The artificial ghoul was more than fairly confident in his ability to last until she was finished freeing the hostages. Hell, he was fairly sure that he would be able to incapacitate most of the opposition before his teammates came over to help.

Blake had also sounded quite confident in her ability to get her job done without fail and he knew that she wasn't one to embellish her capabilities, but his tendency to worry unnecessarily about the people close to him flared up and caused him to hesitate before agreeing to go along with it.

Something that his bow-wearing teammate was quick to point out as a touching sentiment but was also entirely unnecessary in the end. And for some reason, he felt that she wasn't just talking about his hesitation to agree to the plan, but also his response to her falling out of the bullhead earlier.

'_So much for uncompromising confidence in one another,'_ he berated himself mentally before he shook his head of those thoughts, '_No, this isn't the time to be thinking about that, just focus on your objective.'_

After he reminded himself of that, he stood up from his kneeling position and began making his way towards where the three red dots that supposedly represented his captured teammates rested.

Eventually, he found himself staring out from the very edge of the forest towards a medium-sized cluster of buildings that looked to be completely surrounded by six meter or so tall walls made up of a combination of metal plating and stone brick.

'_That must be the settlement Ozpin talked about,' _he noted as his dull gray eyes scanned the walls for an entrance and eventually found one that was being guarded by two men wearing full black suits with red ties and similarly-colored fedoras, '_And those must be the men that woman from earlier was talking about.'_

From what he could see from his position in the brush, the two themselves didn't look very impressive, but then again no one looked impressive when compared to that muscled out whale of a man he fought in his previous world.

The only thing that he could see on the two that looked even remotely dangerous were the guns that were in their hands. He could tell that they were some sort of rifles, but since he had a very limited knowledge of firearms he couldn't tell much about them other than that.

'_Alright, let's start with these two,'_ he thought to himself as he emerged from his place in the trees and began walking towards the entrance the two were guarding, placing the two scrolls he was holding into his pant's pockets as he did so.

They both noticed his approaching form immediately and pointed their guns at him, but before any of them could even consider pulling a trigger, he shot towards them like a bullet.

He doubted either of them could even comprehend the fact that he had moved until he stopped right in between both of them and slammed the palms of his hands into the sides of their heads, making sure to use an amount of force that would only knock them out, not kill them.

And in response to having been knocked from reality into a state of complete unconsciousness, the two suited thugs collapsed limply onto the ground with a light thud.

'_Alright, that's two people I won't have to be worrying about any time soon,'_ he began as he bent over and picked up one of the thugs' guns in his right hand, '_Now to make sure everyone else knows I'm coming.'_

The rinkaku-type ghoul pointed the barrel of the gun up towards the sky and pulled the trigger, releasing a volley of bullets up into Remnant's atmosphere and erupting with a noise that was loud enough to make even him cringe out of discomfort.

'_That should've done the trick,'_ he told himself as he then grabbed the smoking barrel of the gun with free, left hand and bent the metal weapon into a shape that greatly resembled one of man's first great inventions with very little effort.

He quickly did the same with the other thug's gun and proceeded to go through the entrance the two thugs were guarding.

Once he was inside the walls that obscured his view of the settlement earlier, he found himself standing on a road that probably served as the settlement's main road, something that made itself abundantly clear to him when he noticed how much longer and wider it was when he compared it to the side streets that branched off from it.

He pulled his scroll out from his pocket, activated it and opened up the locator once again. As he did so, he began to hear the sound of loud, uneven footsteps pounding against the stone ground coming from directly down the road in front of him.

'_Sounds like the other men heard that gunfire,'_ he noted mentally, not even bothering to look up from the screen of his scroll as he listened to the sound of those footsteps come gradually closer and closer before coming to an abrupt end, presumably when the makers' of the noise finally reached his position.

He could feel the scrutinizing eyes of the people, who he assumed had come to investigate the gunshots from earlier, bore into him from all sides as he continued to simply stand there, staring at the scroll in his hand like they had never shown up to begin with.

Something that unsurprisingly didn't sit too well with at least one of them and prompted that said person to call out to him in a deep, husky voice, "Hey, kid, could you do me a favor and put the scroll down for a damn second so we can this whole 'I'm-going-to-take-you-prisoner' thing over and done with?"

"I've got better things to do than to wait for your-" the thug began to say before Kaneki cut him off.

"You guys are part of the group who shot at the bullhead earlier, aren't you?" he asked them, his voice remaining completely emotionless as he spoke, "The one that took this entire settlement hostage, you're with them right?"

"Yeah, what's it to you?" asked another thug whose voice was considerably more gravelly than the one who was previously talking, "Ah, wait, you must be with those three girls we captured earlier."

"You here to save them or something?" continued the gravelly-voiced thug, whose tone of voice had become considerably more self-assured than it was before, "I'm sorry to say this, but you ain't gonna be playing hero tonight, kid."

"Yeah, especially with the likes of us-" began another thug, who had a higher-pitched voice than the two prior to him, but Kaneki cut him off as well.

"'The likes of you'?" the white-haired half ghoul repeated as he finally looked up from his scroll and directed his gaze towards where the voices were coming from just to find a group of five men, all of which wearing the same outfits as the two he knocked out earlier, standing arm-to-arm with one another with their weapons, which consisted of curved swords and axes that were all painted a dark red, pointed directly at him.

"'The likes of you?'" he repeated once again in a tone that was laced with dark amusement, a small smile creeping onto his face as he returned the scroll to his pocket, "My, my, what a bother the likes of you are."

"What'd you just say to me, you little punk?!" the thug with the higher-pitched voice, who was standing directly in the center of the group of five, snapped at him before taking a step towards him in what was probably a vain attempt at intimidation, "You better watch your mou-"

Deciding that he didn't have the time to chat with the five suited thugs, Kaneki shot towards the thug with the higher-pitched voice while he was still busy talking and slammed a fist right into the side of his jaw with the same amount of force the half ghoul used to knock the other two from earlier unconscious.

The afflicted thug's body flew several meters backwards before he made contact with the ground and crumpled into an unconscious heap onto it.

Knowing that what had just done would surprise the other four thugs so much that it would give him just enough time to incapacitate another one of them, the artificial ghoul turned his attention and body towards the man to his immediate left, which so happened to be the thug with the gravelly voice, and slammed his left shin right into the suited man's stomach.

The gravelly-voiced thug dropped the weapon in his hand and collapsed down onto knees while clutching his stomach in anguish, something that made it clear that he wasn't going to be fighting any time soon. But since there was still a chance that the thug could recover while he was dealing with the others and rejoin the fighting, Kaneki kicked the agonizing thug in the back of the head with his right foot, once again holding back so that the kick wouldn't kill the man.

By the time the gravelly-voiced the thug fell unconscious onto the ground, the half ghoul had already set upon the thug who had been silently standing at the far left-edge of the group of five and directly next to the man he that had just been incapacitated.

Unlike the previous two times however, the suited-thug was able to react to the teen's sudden charge at him, but the only thing that amounted to was him raising his sword up before he was met with a left hook directly to the bridge of the nose.

As the third of the thugs to fall unconscious flew back in recoil of the damage, Kaneki became aware of the pair of hurried footsteps that were coming from behind him and turned to find that the other two henchmen, who were standing to the right of the thug with the higher-pitched voice, rushing towards him with their weapons raised.

He side-stepped the ax of the thug he recognized as the one with the deep and husky voice, who rushed right past him due to the momentum of the charge, which allowed him to focus on the other thug who was currently lunging towards him in an attempt to run his head through with a sword.

The rinkaku-type ghoul leaned out of the way of the incoming blade and reached up to grab the arm that was holding onto said blade with both hands before throwing the man over his shoulder and back first into the ground in a single, fluid motion.

Knowing that the throw alone wasn't going to be enough to fully incapacitate the henchman, Kaneki then proceeded to lodge the bottom of his shoe into the downed man's mouth, knocking him and probably some of his teeth out completely.

Then, as he released his grip on the thug's arm, he turned his attention onto the final member of the group of five, who still hadn't recovered from the momentum of his earlier miss and was just now turning to face him once again.

The eyepatch-wearing ghoul didn't want to give the man that luxury and closed the distance in between them as he was turning to face him. Kaneki doubted that the man even realized he was there before he thrust his open palm directly into thug's gut, prompting him to respond in a way similar to the henchman with the gravelly voice.

He was about to deliver the finishing blow when the distinct sound of clapping slowly coming from directly behind made him stop dead in his tracks. His instincts flaring up inside of him, he reached into his school blazer and pulled out a certain thirty centimeter-long object from one of its pockets, pressing the button that rested directly in the center of the metal object as he did so, causing a metal blade twice the size of its container to spring out from it.

Spinning on a heel, he turned to face, and slash, whoever had snuck up behind him. He expected to make contact with something, either the metal of the person's weapon or the flesh of the person themselves, but what he actually hit surprised him to no end.

He hit nothing. His blade had hit absolutely nothing.

'_What the-'_ he began to think to himself before he felt something blunt drive itself right into the center of his stomach, which made him double over in response.

He barely had time to register the hit before he felt something long and wooden slam right into the side of the jaw with enough force to send him flying to his right.

The white-haired half ghoul quickly corrected himself in mid-air and flipped himself so that he would be facing whoever had hit him when he landed. His dull gray eyes widening when they fell upon who had just hit him.

There standing before him was the multi-haired colored woman who had called Blake on her scroll earlier, who was staring at him with that same small, self-assured smile she wore earlier gracing her features.

"Oh, so you were the other one who fell out that bullhead earlier, why am I not surprised?" she asked him with a sense of familiarity that confused Kaneki to no end, she let out a bitter-sounding chuckle before she continued speaking, "I guess you and old habits don't die very easy, huh?"

"What are you-" he began to ask, but the woman cut him off before could finish.

"You've changed a lot since the last time we saw each other, haven't you, Haise?"

**-Chapter End-**

Well, that's a wrap folks. If you've been checking out my profile as of late, you know that I already told you this chapter was going to be ending with a cliffhanger so you can't say that I didn't warn you.

So if you haven't already guessed it by now, Blake and Kaneki are going to be one of the main pairings of the story. And yes, when I say one, that does mean that there's going to be another pairing or two.

*Cue the cheering of everyone who voted for harem*

*Cue the booing of everyone who picked against harem*

Hey, hey, you non-harem-ers calm down. I know I said no harem, but there's only going to be ONE or TWO other pairings and that's it. This isn't going to turn into your stereotypical harem-fanfic where every girl like the MC and is fine with him dating other women because he's the MC.

And don't worry, they're going to be essential to the plot later on down the line, so just calm your faces.

Well, other than that, I got nothing more to say except see you in two months when I'm done with the next chapter, peace out guys!


	6. Chapter 6: Grander Scheme of Things

Hey guys and welcome, to the sixth lovely chapter of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant. As you can see, I'm back with a chapter that's over ten thousand words, somewhere around eleven or twelve thousand words to be more specific.

Now, some of you might be confused as to why I'm pointing this out when I have chapters that are full six-five thousand words longer than this one. If you add in the fact that I've been pretty consistent with these chapter lengths then now you're doubly confused.

Well, I'm only pointing it out because the length of the chapter isn't what's important, it's the amount of time I took to write it.

A week over one month, that's how long it took to write this chapter. That's a full three weeks ahead of my normal schedule! Something that rarely happens to a prone procrastinator like myself.

Well, that's enough about the production of the chapter, let's now talk about the actual chapter itself.

To put it bluntly, this chapter is going to answer many of your questions. In a way that will surprise a good portion of you and will also manage to leave you with even more questions, but don't worry I already have my ways to answer those questions planned out, so none of you need to worry about it just being an ass pull twist that I wrote just to surprise you all.

I have everything under control, I so swear.

I could also use new cover art for this story, so if any of you can make me one it's greatly appreciated and I'll be sure to give you the credit you deserve.

Oh wait, what's that you're saying? I should stop being a lazy ass and learn how to draw myself? Fine then (but no seriously, if you there's anyone who could make me one, it would be greatly appreciated).

So, that's all I really have to say, but before I start the chapter up. I want to thank you all for getting this story so close to five-hundred favorites.

Hopefully, the story can hit the half a millennium mark with this chapter, because ever since I was a baby writer on this site, I've always wanted to be the writer of one of those top-tier fanfics that reached over a thousand favorites and to even have half that would make my heart jump with joy.

Well, that statement probably got misconstrued and somehow managed to get me labeled as someone who only cares about numbers and not the love of writing, so I'm going to play the mandatory disclaimer and run before the flames appear.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I seriously don't own either of these series, so stop asking. Seriously. Stop.

**-Chapter 6: Grander Scheme of Things-**

Stealth had always been Blake's favorite method of dealing with an enemy. There was just something about sneaking around in the shadows while slowly picking off enemy after enemy without them ever knowing that felt so satisfying to her.

It also helped that dealing with the intellectual and physical challenges that came with a stealth-oriented approach had always come naturally to her due to her penchant for reading, which did have a lot of more things in common with one another than most people thought.

For example, before someone started reading a new book, they would first scan the book over once or twice so they could get a decent understanding of what it was about. The same thing applied to approaching a stealth situation, where the person approaching said situation would first have to scope out the area before they went in so they could get an understanding of what they were walking into.

She could probably list a thousand more similarities between the two, but she unfortunately didn't have the time to waste on doing so. There was an objective she needed to complete and she knew she was going to need all of her mental faculties to complete it.

Her objective was to find her teammates and the people from the settlement, who had all been taken hostage by that woman with three different shades of hair color and her men, and free them. It sounded like a simple task, but that was probably because it was attached to a relatively simple plan, which was really nothing more than a set of objectives that she knew had to be completed with a few vague steps on how to help them get there.

She would first have to take the time to capture one of the enemy men and interrogate him until he gave her their location, a task that sounded more difficult than it actually was considering the fact that these henchmen were criminals, and criminals tended to not want to risk their lives for someone other than themselves.

Then, she would have to deal with the henchmen who were undoubtedly guarding them and do so without alerting anybody of her presence. Something that she was more than confident she could do, but not without some obvious difficulty, which she hoped would be lessened later by Kaneki's coming diversion.

And after she dealt with all of the henchmen in the area came the easy part, she would proceed to free all the hostages and she would then move to assist Kaneki with her newly-freed teammates in tow to help him deal with whatever enemy he was facing with at the time.

Like she had said earlier, her plan wasn't much of a plan at all, which was something she attributed to the fact that she wasn't the best at coming up with strategies before going into situations and was even worse at sticking with them when things started going awry.

She was much more adept at improvising and reacting to things as they happened, which she believed to be a direct result of her affinity for doing things the stealthy way.

She felt this because stealth, to its very core principles, only required a set of objectives to complete and a set of specifications as to how they were completed. Rarely did the path taken to complete them matter because a lot of freedom to adapt was needed for situations that required stealth, something that simply wasn't possible with a large-scale plan.

So for her, someone who has spent her entire life relying on stealth to get things done, to come up with an intricate and well-thought out plan wasn't something she was confident she could do very easily.

That's why she came up with such a simple plan. If things were to hit the proverbial fan then she would have the freedom to improvise and change it without jeopardizing the entire operation.

'_Alright, first things first, find someone to tell me the whereabouts of the hostages,'_ she thought to herself as she began moving towards the side-entrance to the settlement she had found a few minutes after she had separated from Kaneki.

Unsurprisingly, the entrance was being guarded by a pair of men dressed in full-black suits that were adorned with bright red ties, who were both holding what looked to be the standard-issue, dust bullet shooting assault rifle.

Ones that she assumed to be of more a cheaply made variety given the fact that military-grade weaponry were much more expensive to get from black market dealers and thus a much less attractive of weapon for a crime boss to arm his men with since their budget would never be on the same scale of an entire government funded by taxpayer money.

'_Alright, I guess rushing them is out of the question,'_ she noted, knowing that rushing them might lead to one of them shooting their guns in retaliation, which both would alert the enemy of her presence and completely nullify all of Kaneki's efforts as a distraction.

'_Hm, maybe I could-'_ she began to muse before a volley of gunfire split through the silent forest air and forced her attention away from her thoughts and towards the direction she had heard the gunfire come from.

'_Wait, isn't Kaneki over there?'_ she asked herself mentally as a tinge of worry ran through her veins.

"W-what the hell was that?" she heard one of the guards yelp out in a mix of shock and fear, prompting her to return her attention back onto the two guards, who were now looking over in the same direction she was a few seconds ago, leaving their backs completely open to attack.

'_This might be my chance,'_ the bow-wearing teen noted as she reached up and removed Gambol Shroud from its magnetic holster while both mentally and physically preparing herself to charge at the two.

"Gunfire, I think," replied the other guard, who had reacted much calmer manner than his partner, "Might be an attack, or-"

The guard never got to finish whatever he was going to say because the moment he had started talking, Blake had shot out of the brush, ran up to him and smacked him right on the backside of the head with the back of Gambol Shroud's metal sheath, knocking all consciousness out of the guard immediately.

Probably having taken notice of his partner's sudden cut off, the other guard turned around to see what had happened only to find her pointing the tip of the completely unsheathed form of Gambol Shroud right where his jugular would be.

"Wh-" the henchman began before she cut him off.

"Stop talking, right now," she commanded him in the coldest tone she could muster, "You're not going to talk and you're definitely not going to move, unless I tell you otherwise or this blade is going to reach the otherside of your throat, do you understand?"

The guard visibly gulped and nodded his head tentatively.

"Okay, now I'm going to ask you a couple of questions and then I'm going to knock you out," she continued, using the same tone as she did earlier, "Which means, if I find out that you lied about any of the answers you gave me, I'm going to come back here and make sure this blade goes where I said it would, do you understand that?"

The guard nodded once more.

"Alright, do you remember those three girls you captured, the ones that came in the Bullhead you shot at?"

The guard gave another nod in response.

"Did you put them with the other hostages?"

Yet another nod.

"Now, where are those hostages?" she followed, asking him the million lien question.

A question that he frantically replied to with, "They're in a large building somewhere in the middle of the settlement, you'll know it when you see it."

"As of right now, how many of you are guarding it?" she pressed the man further, wanting to know every scrap of detail she could.

"I don't know, um, somewhere around ten and twenty," he answered with a tone that made it clear that he wasn't sure what he was saying was actually true or not and was giving her his best ballpark guess, "I didn't really bother with learning the number since I wasn't stationed to guard it, y'know."

The bow-wearing teen stared at the man in front of her with scrutinizing amber eyes, looking for any sign that might indicate that he was lying or withholding information from her, but found nothing that would point to that.

"I'm going to assume that's all you know about the situation, would I be correct in assuming that?" she asked him and he gave a frantic nod back almost immediately, "Alright, then that means that I have you no more use for me unfortunately."

Without saying another word, she bashed the henchman in the side of the head with bottom of Gambol Shroud's pommel with all of the strength she could muster, knowing that it would take a lot more power to knock a full-grown man out without any previous momentum built up.

She was initially quite concerned that she had put too much force into that blow when the man fell over onto his side, limp as a wet rag, but any concerns were immediately dashed when she saw that his chest was still rising and falling like it should've been.

'_To the center of the settlement then…'_ she thought to herself as she made her way through the entrance the two now unconscious thugs were guarding.

* * *

'_Wait, what did she just call me?'_ Kaneki asked himself as he stared at the multi-color haired woman with dull grey eyes that contained a mix of shock and confusion before he began to mentally repeat what she had just said in his head, '_Haise… Haise… Haise… That name… Why does it sound so familiar?'_

She, however, didn't look familiar to him at all and he fully doubted that he would forget someone as unique-looking as her.

The thing about her that first caught his eye the moment he first laid eyes upon her was her hair, or to be more specific her hair color. She had hair that was sectioned off into three different colors: one part light pink, another part chocolate brown, and a few streaks of pale white in the pink area, which was a color combination he didn't see so often when it came to hair.

The next thing that he noticed were her differently-colored eyes, which bared the same shade as the two main colors of her hair, pink and brown, and stared down at him with a look that was part condescension and another part being an emotion he couldn't quite pin down.

'_Stop it!'_ he berated himself mentally while he shook his head to free himself from such thoughts, '_She's just trying to distract you, no matter how familiar that name may sound, what she's saying is not true so don't fucking fall for it.'_

"I mean, look at you with that serious expression on your face, can't say it really fits you," the woman began in a voice that was filled with amusement, shaking him out of his thoughts almost immediately, "Same goes for the white hair and eyepatch, by the way."

"Makes you look ridiculous, if I dare say so myself," she added with a look of honest contemplation on her face, "Almost like a wannabe, emo pirate."

"I'm sorry," the white-haired half ghoul stated as he pushed himself back up to his feet, noticing a dull pain beginning to radiate from his midsection as he did so, but he shrugged it off as residual damage from the hit he had taken earlier, "But I think you might be confusing me with someone else, my name's not Haise, it never was and it never will be."

"Really now?" the woman asked as that self-assured smile of hers was momentarily replaced with what looked like a troubled frown before immediately reverting back to what it previously was and continuing to speak.

"Well, I would like to say that I'm not very inclined to believe you," she continued on before she stopped and pointed her weapon at him, which essentially looked exactly like a pink and white umbrella, "But for now, I think it'd be best if we save that discussion for after I beat you into submission, don'tcha think?"

He let out an irritated snort at the woman's words and raised his own weapon in anticipation for the woman's impending attack, making sure that his eyes never left her as he did so, but lost sight of her when she disappeared in a flash.

That wasn't to say that she had moved from one place to another so quickly that his eyes couldn't keep up with it. No, what had happened was that there was a literal flash of bright, white light and the woman was nowhere to be seen the moment it dissipated.

'_What the-?'_ he began but immediately cut that train of thought off when his instincts flared up and told him that there was now a presence standing behind him that wasn't there the second before.

Not wanting a repeat of what had happened to him less than a minute ago, Kaneki jumped forwards and felt something graze the back of his blazer as he did so.

Knowing that there was a good chance the woman was going to try to attack him once he landed, he turned a full one-hundred eighty degrees in midair and prepared himself to dodge more of her attacks. She did as he predicted and had tried to attack him, this time opting to charge directly at him instead of doing whatever she did with that flash of light.

The multi-color haired woman swung her umbrella at him the moment she got close enough to do so and in response to the attack, the artificial ghoul read the trajectory of the swing and found that the umbrella would eventually meet with his head if it he didn't move, so he did the most logical thing he could think of at the moment and moved.

Ducking out of the way of the swing, he took a step forward and slashed at the woman's newly exposed stomach in retaliation. His attack, much like her own, ended up missing its intended mark because she had jumped back and out of the reach of his blade before it could meet with her flesh.

Not wanting to give her even a second to breathe, he switched his mindset from defensive to offensive and closed the distance in between the two of them with the intent of pressing her into making a mistake.

Gripping the handle of his blade with both hands so he could put more power behind his attack, he sent a downward swing her way, to which she responded by easily side-stepping it and jumping back out of the way once again.

He followed her to where she landed and took another swing at her, this one being of the horizontal and rightward variety, which prompted her to jump backwards yet again to evade the attack.

The cycle of him attacking and her jumping back to evade those attacks repeated two more times before it was finally broken when instead of slashing at her, he spun counterclockwise while raising his right leg to feign a kick.

Naturally not knowing the kick was a feign, the woman raised her umbrella in response, probably intending to attempt to parry the attack instead of simply trying to evade it like she had done the past four times in a row. Something that, if it was successfully done, would reverse their current roles and put her back onto the offensive.

Unfortunately for her, this was exactly how he wanted her to react, which was something she probably realized when the initial kick she was preparing to parry never came. What did come, however, was a spinning heel kick delivered at half the range of his first and came with the same amount momentum of the original.

The kick still made contact with the umbrella, but the amount of force put into it, coupled with the fact that the woman probably wasn't fully expecting the kind of kick he was throwing, allowed him to knock the weapon out of her hand and off towards his left.

When his foot returned to its place back onto the ground, he immediately tried a slash directed at the woman's abdomen, knowing that jumping back and away from the attack would prove to be ineffective at their current range.

It seemed that she was aware of this fact too because right before his blade reached the unclothed flesh at her midriff, she flipped herself up and over it. He had expected her to stop flipping when she landed back onto her feet, but she went against those expectations and continued to cartwheel towards where her weapon was laying on the ground.

The artificial ghoul cursed to himself upon seeing this and shot towards her, hoping that he would be fast enough to intercept her and get a hit in before she reached the umbrella. He gripped his weapon's handle with both hands as he charged towards, mentally preparing himself for a clash when he noticed that she stopped cartwheeling for some reason or the other.

Hoping that it wasn't because she had managed to reach her weapon, he slashed down at her when he got close enough to do so, but unfortunately she was able to get to her weapon before he attacked and managed to blocked the incoming strike with one of her own, causing the sharp edge of his blade to clash with the round wood of the umbrella.

"You've improved a lot from the last time we did something like this, haven't you?" the woman he was currently deadlocked with mused, "It seems not just in terms of skill, but in strength as well if you're actually able to keep even with me like this."

From an outsider's perspective, one might see how they were pushing his weapon against hers and think that they were evenly matched in terms of strength, but that wasn't the case at all. Kaneki was actually only putting in enough force to keep them even in the deadlock they were having, knowing that it would be unwise to try and overpower someone with the amount of skill she had.

No, the best way to beat someone who was more skilled than you was to employ the element of surprise in how you fought, which basically meant that he had to do things she might not have expected him to be able to do.

A flashback to his sparring session with Weiss earlier the previous day forced its way to the forefront of his mind and reminded him that he had been taught how to deal with situations like the one he was currently in.

The heiress of the Schnee fortune had taught him that when he was deadlocked with someone, he should try and do something called a flat-faced parry so that's what he did.

While releasing some of the force he was pushing against her with so that she would be the one who was predominantly pushing up against him, he shifted his blade so that her umbrella was no longer being pressed against the edge of his sword, but pressed against the flat part of the blade instead.

Then doing so in one fluid motion, he began to spin counterclockwise while angling his blade so that her umbrella, which was now sliding down the flat of his blade to its tip, would go over his right shoulder and miss touching his head by a few centimeters as he moved.

Not being able to pull back fast enough, the woman's umbrella did exactly as he intended it to and rolled off his blade, fully exposing its wielder to attack. He followed through on his spin and attempted a swing at the woman's throat that greatly resembled that of a baseball player trying to hit a baseball.

The white-haired half ghoul watched as his blade traveled towards the woman's neck with a wry smile only to start frowning when he saw her lean back suddenly and miss being hit by a hair's breadth in what seemed like slow motion.

The world then suddenly shifted from slow motion back to real time when he felt something awfully familiar being forcibly driven into the back of his knee with enough force to cause it to buckle under him.

Before he could even react to that blow being dealt to him, he felt the same thing meet with the back of his head, which caused his face to go on a sudden one way trip towards the ground. The only reason why it didn't lead to him ending up with a mouthful of dirt was that he had stuck his hands out in front of him so that he could catch himself before it could happen.

Truth be told, the hits he was taking really didn't hurt very much, but the last shot he took had disoriented him to the point where he couldn't even look at the ground without it splitting up into twos that repeatedly switched places, back and forth, with one another.

Kaneki let out an annoyed grunt before he clamped his eyes shut and began to shaking his head violently in hopes of correcting his vision, but before he could open his eyes to see if it had actually helped or not, he felt something cold and smooth suddenly press up against the area directly above his Adam's apple.

At first, the object was only applying a small amount of pressure against his throat, which still allowed him a small amount of room to breathe. Then not even a second later, he felt the amount of pressure on his trachea increased tenfold, forcibly cutting off his ability to breathe and send blood up to his brain as he felt himself be forcibly dragged up into a kneeling position.

"My, you really have changed, haven't you Haise?" he heard the woman say from somewhere behind him before he felt a new force suddenly start pressing down on the back of his head, pushing his throat further into whatever was pressing up on it.

If that wasn't enough pain for him to go through, the sound of her saying that name again had caused the dull pain in his abdomen to increase, not enough for it to actually start hurting him, but the difference in intensity was definitely hard not to notice.

'_What the __**fuck**_ _is that?'_ he cursed to himself before the sound of the woman speaking drew him out of his thoughts.

"You know, there are a few things that I never thought I would be able to see in my lifetime," she began in a voice that sounded very strange, it sound almost as if she was reminiscing about something from her past, "But I never thought I see the day where I would see Haise Sasaki of all people try to cleave my head off from in between my shoulders."

Those words had caused the pain in his abdomen to increase once more, which made him wonder if he had somehow been stabbed at some point during the fight. He would've reached down to check, but his hands were too preoccupied with grasping at whatever was cutting off more and more of his air supply, which in turn caused him to lose more and more of his consciousness as the seconds ticked by.

"Tell me, do you really hate me that much?" the multi-color haired woman asked in a tone that was void of her earlier mocking tone and was replaced with one that sounded like bitter amusement, "I mean, did what I do to you really make you hate me enough that it made you able kill me without a single ounce of hesitation?"

The already intensifying pain in his midsection seemingly doubled when she said that and his vision got blurrier as he felt himself getting closer to fading.

"But you know what..." she trailed off right when he felt a cold hand begin to run itself down the left side of his head, starting from the top of his head and slowly making its way down to where his left eye should've been, but was currently being covered up by his medical eyepatch.

"Other than the new look you got for yourself," she began as she slipped a couple of her thin, bony fingers underneath said eyepatch and touched the eye underneath softly, "I kind of like the new 'ready-to-kill' Haise, definitely makes you a lot more interesting than the one who would feel bad about accidentally stepping on an ant."

That was the proverbial final straw for Kaneki. That last sentence out of her had caused the pain he was feeling to become unbearable to the point where he completely forgot about the fact that his vision, much like his own consciousness, had almost faded completely.

'_Need to get away,'_ he commanded himself mentally as his grip on whatever was wrapped around his neck tightened before pulling down on it with all of his might, which allowed himself an opportunity to refill his lungs with much needed oxygen.

His vision became increasingly less and less blurry as oxygen poured back into his lungs, which allowed to him notice that the object that had been wrapped around his neck extended out over his left shoulder.

He quickly pieced one and two together and realized that the woman had been using her umbrella to choke him out, which prompted him to grab higher up on the weapon with his left hand and throw it like it was a javelin, sending it and its owner flying through the air in front of him.

The white-haired ghoul wasn't able to see where the woman ended up landing because the momentum the throw had created had forced him back onto his hands and knees, which was something he probably would've been more concerned about if the entirety of his body wasn't so oxygen starved.

'_Dammit, she's strong,'_ he mentally cursed once again as he breathing began to slow back to its usual pace, '_Actually, she's probably the strongest opponent I've had to face since my fight with Arima.'_

He wasn't exaggerating at all when he said that. Thinking back on it, the only real challenge he's had in terms of an opponent to face ever since then was Weiss, but that was just sparring session so he couldn't even call that a real fight to begin with.

'_I'm not going to be able to beat her this way,'_ he noted while glancing down at his sword, which he was forced to drop when the woman had started choking him out, '_She's clearly far too experienced with her weapon for me to try and fight her and equal terms with my own.'_

If someone were to ask him how he was able to discern something like that from only a single clash, he would answer by pointing out how she had used her weapon throughout said clash, which was barely at all except for the few times when he would accidently give her an opening to exploit.

For example, when he went on the offensive and tried to attack her, he noticed that she had never once raised her weapon to defend herself throughout the entire exchange and had opted to dodge his attacks instead.

Something that initially made no sense to him since it was a widely known fact that blocking an attack was much easier than trying to dodge one, but it soon became apparent to him after his fourth attempt at hitting her that she wasn't blocking his attacks because she could read his attacks like they were words on a page and didn't feel there was a need to.

He didn't know if this was because of his lack of experience handling his own weapon, her experience handling hers, or a combination of both; however, he did know that he was never going to beat her in his current state.

Luckily, he did have a way of swinging the advantage his way in the form of his kagune, but he did have to admit that he was rather reluctant to use it for two reasons.

The first being the fact that there was always the chance that she might get away before he got the opportunity to kill her and he'd rather not have an enemy who had the manpower to take an entire settlement of people hostage know about the biggest secret he had.

The second reason was, admittedly, a much more personal one. To him, having to resort to such drastic measures felt exactly like he was admitting to the fact that he couldn't beat her by normal means alone, which was something he didn't like to do too often, even if he knew that not doing so would put himself at a disadvantage.

Of course, there were times where he had no other choice but to stoop to such levels to win like his later fights with Shachi and Amon, and he would gladly throw away his pride if it that was the case, but if the situation at hand didn't specifically call for such actions to be taken, he'd more than likely end up not taking them to satisfy said emotion.

'_Come on, come on think!'_ he yelled at himself mentally as he wracked his brain for a way of beating her without bringing out his kagune, '_I can beat her without using my kagune, I just have to-'_

"_**You're wrong, Ken,**_" he heard a voice say from somewhere behind him in a deep and scratchy voice, a voice that eerily sounded a lot like his own, "_**You and I both know that you're never going to be able to beat her at this level of strength.**_"

"_**At this rate, she's going to kill you and those precious new friends of yours,**_" the voice continued on in a mocking tone, "_**Even now, you still can't protect a thing, can you?**_"

'_That's not true,'_ he argued vainly against the voice in his head, '_She said that she needed us alive.'_

"_**And what do you think she's going to do once she's done using you all?**_" it proceeded to ask, completely derailing any argument he had against it, "_**She's definitely not just going to let you all go, that's for sure.**_"

The white-haired half ghoul felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up when a hand that was almost deathly cold clasp tightly around his right shoulder, one bony finger at a time.

"_**You're so cold Ken, does the thought of losing your new friends scare you that much?**_" it whispered so closely into his right ear that he could feel the lack of warmth in its breath, "_**Then why don't you just throw away that pride of yours and just accept me already?**_"

"Could you please just shut up?" he growled at the voice in his head through clenched teeth as he forced himself back onto his feet, the still nagging pain in his abdomen long since forgotten under the shroud of emotion that had draped itself over him.

"Oh, did I strike a nerve there?" the woman asked, her mocking voice replacing the one that had been speaking to him in his head.

He opened his mouth to answer the question, but the words died in his throat when he saw her raise her left hand up to shoulder level and spin a familiar white object around the middle of her pointer finger.

'_Is that…?'_ he began to ask as his own left hand subconsciously shot up to where his eyepatch should've been to confirm what he thought had happened, only to curse to himself internally when he realized that his suspicions proved themselves to be true, '_Dammit, she must've pulled it off when I threw her…'_

He let out an irritated snort before returning his hand back to its original position at his side and mentally adding, '_... but then again, it's not like I'm going to need for what happens next.'_

"So that's what you were hiding under this thing," the woman noted before throwing the broken eyepatch off to the side somewhere like it was a piece of trash, "Hm, I was expecting it to be closed with a scar over it or something, but I guess a perfectly normal eye is fine too."

The white-haired half ghoul let out an amused scoff as he began to slip his school blazer off of his shoulders, tilting his head down at an angle so that his eyes were hidden behind his white bangs.

"A 'perfectly normal eye', huh?" he repeated, a small smile creeping onto his face as he extended his right arm out to his side and dropped the bloodstained article of clothing onto the ground in the same fashion the woman had discarded his eyepatch, before proceeding to ask in a mocking tone that could've rivaled her own, "You sure like making a lot of assumptions, don't you?"

He noticed the woman raise an eyebrow at the statement and open her mouth, probably in an attempt to respond to the statement, but he cut her off before any words could escape her mouth.

"The only things you've done up until now was assume all of these things about me," Kaneki explained as he rotated his right hand so that his open palm faced the ground, "My eye being perfectly normal... You and I knowing each other… What my name is… You just assumed that all of these things were true."

"So let's set things straight before you assume any more incorrect things about me," he continued while placing his right thumb over his index finger, "I don't know who you think I am, but whoever he is, I'm not him."

"Really now?" she asked him in a tone that screamed that she didn't entirely buy what he was saying, but was playing along anyway, "Well, truth be told, I sort of prefer this over the alternative. I mean, in terms of who I'm more interested in, I think you beat Haise by a longshot."

The rinkaku-type ghoul let out a sardonic chuckle in response to the statement as he began to push his kagune up to the surface, which caused a bubbling black mass to begin to form on the small of his back.

"I wonder if I should be happy about that or not," he replied, a bone-chillingly loud crack ringing through the air as he pressed down onto his index finger.

At the exact same moment he cracked his finger, the mass forming on his back exploded outwards and prompted a thick, sludge-like liquid to spew out from it.

"But I think that it'd be better for the both of us if you and I not get involved at all..." he continued as the liquid that had been spewing wildly from his back began to form eight jet black tentacles.

Looking up at the woman, who was now staring at him with a look of pure shock, the small smile he had been sporting earlier evolved into one of gleeful madness as the kakugan in his left eye activated. The sclera of his once 'perfectly normal' left eye turning jet black and his iris turning a brilliantly bright crimson.

"... **right?**"

Before his opponent could even open her mouth to respond to what he had just said, he pounced up in the air towards her and sent the four tentacles that had formed on the right of his body towards her. Probably acting off instinct alone, the woman flipped herself back and out of the way his kagune, causing the four kagune to stab into the concrete ground where she once stood instead of her body like he had intended.

Knowing that he should press the advantage for as long as he had it, when Kaneki landed back onto the ground, he retracted the kagune he had impaled into the ground, he pivoted his hips to the right and sent the four that had formed on the left side of his body towards his still-cartwheeling opponent.

Almost as if she was expecting him to do something like that, she ceased all cartwheeling and pointed the tip of her umbrella right at the four tentacles shooting towards her. He briefly wondered what she was trying to do when her umbrella suddenly opened up, revealing the pink and white canopy that it had kept hidden throughout the entirety of their earlier clash.

His kagune slammed into her umbrella, but instead of running clean through the seemingly thin fabric canopy of said umbrella, the predatory organs failed to penetrate the unassumingly effective shield and simply pushed the woman a couple of feet back from her original position.

'_Looks like I'm not going to be able to stab through that umbrella of hers,'_ the white-haired half ghoul thought to himself calmly as began to combine the four unoccupied kagune on his right side into a single, much larger tentacle, '_I guess I'm going to have to smash through it instead.'_

Retracting the four kagune that were pressing against the umbrella's canopy, he simultaneously brought the single, heftier kagune down onto his still defending opponent with all of the force he could muster.

The offending scaled tentacle slammed into the ground with enough force to crush the concrete into dust, which flew up in the air from the shock of the impact.

'_Shit...'_ he cursed to himself, knowing that meant his attack had hit the ground, and _only_ the ground.

'_There's no way she could've moved out of the way that fast,'_ he added mentally as he began to scan his surroundings frantically for the woman's whereabouts, '_She must've did what she did earlier when she disappeared in that flash of light.'_

'_So where…'_ he trailed off mentally when he noticed a bright flash similar to the one he had seen earlier occur from directly above him, prompting him to look up towards it.

There he found the woman falling down towards him with her umbrella raised over her head, ready to be brought down onto him.

Acting almost off instinct alone, the artificial ghoul began to retract the giant kagune from the crater it rested in and back to him, dragging it along the ground as he split it back into four separate tentacles.

When they were almost back to him, he jumped up in the air, pivoting his body so that he was parallel to the ground and spun counterclockwise in mid-air so he could counter the incoming attack with the four returning kagune.

Just like last time he attempted to hit her, there was a bright flash of light and his kagune had once again hit nothing but empty air.

He landed back onto his feet and he mentally growled to himself, '_Oh come on, you have got to be-'_

Kaneki felt something, probably the umbrella the woman was holding, slam into the back of his head before he could finish the mental statement and he stumbled forwards in response to the blow.

Already knowing that she wasn't going to be behind him when he turned around, he swept his kagune a full three-hundred sixty degrees around him in hopes of stopping the multi-color haired woman's assault before it began.

Once he had finished the defensive sweep, he scanned his surroundings for a sign of the woman and found her sitting on top of an old fashion-looking street lamp with one of her legs crossed over the other. She was looking down at him with a self-satisfied smirk spread across her lips and when she saw him look up at her, she began to clap her hands together slowly.

"You know, if that was your attempt to try and get me disinterested in you then I have to say that you're doing a pretty shoddy job of it," the woman stated in the same mocking tone as before, making it seem like the reveal of his kagune didn't affect her at all, "Because, trust me when I say that, I've never been more interested in a person than I am with you, right now."

'_Hm, despite how evenly she's speaking, her diaphragm is expanding and contracting more rapidly than normal,'_ the white-haired half ghoul noted as he scanned the woman up and down with his eyes, '_That must mean that teleporting ability of hers takes a bit more out of her than she lets on, which means I should probably expect one of two things from her from here on out.'_

'_She's either going to use it over and over in an attempt to dispatch me quickly, or she's going to use it sparingly and try to whittle me down until I'm the one who's out of energy,'_ he mused as a plan of attack began to form in his head, '_With my stamina, withstanding either form of attack wouldn't be too difficult, but the prior is obviously more favorable than the latter in this situation.'_

'_Which means I'm going to have to-'_ he began mentally but was cut off when he saw the woman once again disappear in a bright flash of light as she teleported away from her perch, but unlike last time he knew where she teleported to almost immediately.

Mainly because she teleported herself so that was standing right in front of him and before he could react to her sudden change in positioning, Kaneki felt something with a sharp point jam itself into the area of his stomach.

Being a ghoul with an abnormally high pain tolerance, whatever had been jammed into his stomach didn't manage to pierce his skin and he didn't even feel any pain from the attack, but despite all of this, his body still began to recoil from the force of the impact.

As he doubled over, he noticed that the blow had indeed caused him to feel pain, but he realized that there was something off about the pain the moment it him. He knew what it should feel like to be hit in the stomach and it wasn't the same.

The pain wasn't sharp and it wasn't coursing through his body like it had somehow replaced the blood in his veins. No, the pain he was currently feeling was dull and it hovered in one single area.

'_I've felt this before…'_ he noted mentally as the already intense pain in his abdomen seemingly doubled, which forced him to his knees as his legs to give way under him suddenly, '_... this kind of pain, I've felt it before, I know I have.'_

He knew this sort of pain well, way too well in his opinion.

'_Why am I-'_ he began but was cut off when a memory that he knew to be completely and undoubtedly foreign to him suddenly invaded his thoughts.

* * *

No longer was Kaneki kneeling on the cold concrete. Hell, he wasn't even on his knees anymore.

He was standing in what he recognized to be the interior of a BullHead airship's cargo hold, looking down through the bullhead's open side door at the ground that was several stories below him as it zipped by.

"_Sorry about this,"_ he heard an all too familiar voice say from behind him right before he felt a sharp pain suddenly run through his midsection with the speed of a wildfire.

His eyes immediately shot down towards where the pain was coming from to see what had caused it and found a thin blade poking out from where his navel should be. He watched it with wide, shocked eyes as it retreated back into his body and felt it come out of the initial point of entry.

Warm blood began to leak profusely out of the newly-made wounds in his stomach and his back as the force of the blade being pulled out of him caused him to stumble forward, which caused him to come dangerously close to falling out of the BullHead's cargo hold.

He looked over his shoulder in hopes of catching even a small glimpse of the person who had stabbed him, but what he actually saw immediately made him regret that action.

There, standing behind him with a blade that was covered from tip to guard with what he presumed to be his blood, was the same tri-color haired woman. She didn't have the same mocking smile she had earlier, but the corner of her lips were turned upwards in a smile, one that seemed strangely sad to him.

"_Why…"_ the words slipped from his lips right before all strength left his legs and he began falling out through the BullHead's side door.

He reached a hand towards the multi-color haired woman as he fell and he uttered a name that should've been foreign to him, but it instead caused him to feel a pain that was much worse than any injury could cause.

* * *

"... Neo?" the name slipped from the white-haired ghoul's lips as the memory playing out in his head finally subsided.

'_That name... where did I…'_ he began mentally as the dull pain hovering in his stomach area doubled once more.

"Oh, so you do remember my name?" the woman in question noted in a distinctly curious tone, "I guess it just took a stab where I stabbed you last to get your memory running."

Those words had barely registered with him as his mind was almost completely focused on the agony that was radiating from his stomach. His bony fingers clutched at the aching flesh as his body began to tremble.

'_It hurts… it hurts… it hurts…'_ the phrase repeated itself over and over in his head as the eight scaled tentacles on his back began to thrash around wildly in his pain-driven panic, getting so wrapped up in his mental breakdown that he didn't even notice that the woman had once again disappeared in a flash of light, '_It hurts… IT HURTS… __**IT HURTS!**_'

* * *

Blake's progress towards the center of the settlement could be described with one word: gradual. This was because instead of flat out running towards her destination and bursting into where her teammates were being held with reckless abandon, she was taking a much more stealth-oriented approach and surveying the area around her before moving from one hiding spot to another.

It took her thrice amount the time it took if she had just went with the prior option, but she knew that doing so would put her at such a disadvantage that it would probably be more practical for her to walk up to the enemy and surrender, because at least that option didn't end her with being horrendously maimed or killed.

A decision that was only affirmed in her mind when she saw the amount of men that were guarding the building she assumed to hold the hostages, which she recognized to be structure that had been singled out as the settlement's town hall during the briefing her team had been given before they had departed.

It was about two stories tall and seemed to be made out of a combination of grey stone brick walls and white marble pillars, which made it stand out from the other buildings in the settlement that were made out of only grey brick.

'_Either they have a lot more men that I initially thought or Kaneki's distraction didn't work,'_ she took note of the amount of guards patrolling the area as her amber eyes scanned the streets surrounding the town hall from a nearby alleyway, looking for any telltale signs of a possible point of entry, '_Well, this certainly complicates things.'_

She didn't necessarily need her ghoul's teammate's diversion to successfully sneak into the building, but she did have to admit that it made things infinitely harder.

As of the moment, there were currently nineteen guards on the outside of the town hall. Fifteen of them were patrolling the streets in groups of five and four were stationed directly in front of the town hall's front door.

From what she could see from her position in the alley, none of the men patrolling the streets carried a firearm and were instead carrying around red-bladed swords and battle-axes. The same didn't apply for the four who were guarding the front door, who were all carrying the same variant of machine gun the two men she had knocked out earlier had.

Her mind immediately went to thoughts of the possibility of entering through the facility's back door, but she dismissed those thoughts when she realized that the same conditions probably applied to the rear of the building.

It was clear to her that she was going to have to work with what she was currently presented with, which incidentally wasn't a whole lot.

Blake had two possible points of entry. She could either go through the front door or a window that had a plastic sheet over it, which she took as a sign that said that the window's glass had broken and somehow went untouched by the guards.

At first glance, this might've seemed like an oversight on their part, but one had to take in account the fact that there were currently fifteen men patrolling the street around it.

'_They must've thought that their would be no way someone would be able to get past all of them without being seen,'_ she mused as her glanced back at the front door, '_Well, I guess it's still a better option than the prior.'_

With a plan firmly set in her mind, she waited for an opening in the three patrols and then crouch-ran her towards the plastic-covered window, before squeezing in between the sheet and the window pane into the room beyond.

'_That was easier than I expected,'_ she noted as she slipped into the room, '_Then again, it's not like they're trained soldiers or anything.'_

The room she now found herself in could be described as dimly lit at best, so much so that she believed that someone with much worse night vision than her own would be effectively blind if not for the one source of illumination, which happened to be a light coming from a small crack in the slightly ajar door in front of her, one that she assumed lead out to a hallway of some sort.

She made her way over to the door and listened for any sign of a presence waiting behind the door, but when she found nothing, she wrapped her fingers around the knob of the door and she pulled it on it so that there was just enough room for her to slip through.

The bow-wearing bookworm waited a couple of more seconds, just to confirm that there was indeed no one waiting on the other side to ambush her, before doing just that.

'_Alright, time to find the others,'_ she thought to herself as the light of the hallway enveloped her.

* * *

The next couple of minutes for Blake were rather uneventful. She pretty much spent that time sneaking around the town hall, going from door to door, looking for the room where the hostages were being kept.

She did have to evade a guard patrol every once in awhile, but doing so was pretty much child's play for her, especially when she found that they were much less disciplined than she had first thought.

For example, they would occasionally stop patrolling the halls to make an offhand comment or stupid joke about some subject she could really care less about, but she really couldn't complain since those temporary lapses of concentration did give her the time she needed to put distance between them and her.

Still, actually finding the room that held her objective proved to be a pretty tedious affair, but she did manage to find them after about fifteen failed attempts.

When she did finally stumble across it, she was surprised to find that the door wasn't locked and even more surprised to find that there were absolutely no guards to speak of inside of the room or around the room, only the hostages who were all kneeling in the center of the room with their hands tied behind their backs with rope.

Upon seeing this, her mind immediately went to it being a trap, but she soon realized after a couple of seconds of carefully scanning the room from a crack in the door, that there indeed was no trap set for her. She found this to be a completely odd and overall idiotic decision on the part of her enemy, but once again, she really wasn't in a position to complain.

"Blake!" she heard her young leader call out to her in a loud whisper the moment she entered the room, "Over here!"

The bow-wearing bookworm's amber eyes immediately turned towards the direction where the voice was coming from and found her teammates kneeling together in the far corner of the room, and unlike the other hostages, their wrists weren't bound together behind their backs with rope.

All of their arms were crossed over in a way that formed a triangle and bound together with handcuffs instead of rope.

'_Strange, if they had the wherewithal to tie them up in a different fashion than the other hostages, how could they overlook something as vital as stationing guards to watch over the room?'_ Blake asked herself as she approached her bound teammates.

"Oh thank goodness you're here!" Weiss exclaimed in a relieved whisper as she approached, "Hurry up and untie me, I can't stand spending another minute tied to this living, blonde-haired ball of impatience!"

"Hey, don't even pretend that I enjoyed a second being tied to you, princess," Yang retorted with a good amount of irritation in her voice, "And for the last time, I am not impatient!"

"You just tried to chew your _metal_ handcuffs off with your teeth!" the heiress of the Schnee fortune shot back with the same amount of irritation.

Her partner opened her mouth to respond, but was promptly cut off when Ruby cut into their argument, "I know you guys don't get along very well with one another, but could you please save your bickering for, I don't know, _after_ we get out of these handcuffs?"

Blake watched on with an amused smile as the two stared at the young team leader in shock for a couple seconds before looking away and mumbling in agreement.

"Good, now that's settled, Blake could you please get these things off of us?" Ruby asked while raising her bound wrists towards the teammate in question with a deep frown that was uncharacteristic of the young team leader, "Those guys took Crescent Rose from me and I want her back NOW."

Having been somewhat shocked by the usually wistful girl's suddenly serious disposition, the original bookworm of team RWBY quickly reached for her own weapon and replied with, "S-sure, give me a second."

She pulled Gambol Shroud from its magnetic holster on her back and went to work unleashing her teammates from their shared captivity.

Three swings. It only took her three swings well placed swings to break the literal chains that bound them together.

Her three teammates' wrists still had the actual cuffs themselves wrapped around them, something she felt somewhat guilty about since she would've had the ability to get them off if she hadn't forgotten her lock picking equipment back at Beacon, but she quelled that guilt when she reminded herself that they would only have to deal with them for a little bit longer.

"Thanks, I didn't know how much more of that I could take," Yang told her as the blonde bounced up to her feet with a vitality one wouldn't normally expect from someone who's spent a good chunk of time chained up, "I swear, I want to go out there and knock a tooth out for every second I spent being tied up in here."

"Make sure to save some teeth for me," Ruby added as she made her way back up to her feet in manner similar to her half-sister's, "No one who dares take my sweet baby away from me is going to keep their teeth."

Weiss let out an exasperated sigh as she stood back up onto her feet, shaking her head as she added a comment of her own, "You two really have to stop spending so much time around Kaneki, I think his violent tendencies are starting to rub off on you."

"You and I both know that I've been like this long before he came into our lives," the older of the two half-sisters countered before suddenly turning her attention toward Blake and asking, "Speaking of him, where is that borderline bipolar teammate of ours?"

"I know that he took a pretty nasty fall earlier, but given his previous track record of surviving things that would kill any normal person, I thought that he'd be up and walking by now," Yang continued on with a slight worried edge to her voice.

"Don't worry, he's fine," the bow-bearing bookworm began, taking a second to take in a breath through her nostrils before explaining the situation further, "As of the moment, he's busy running distraction for me, so that I wouldn't have to deal with too many guards on my way here to free you three."

"'A distraction?'" Weiss repeated with furrowed brows, "So is it safe to assume that the gunfire I heard earlier was caused by him?"

"Yeah, most likely," Blake nodded in affirmation before glancing towards the door she came in through, "And I think that might be a sign that means he needs my help, is it alright if I leave freeing the hostages to you?"

"Of course, why are you even bothering to ask for our permission?" her blonde-haired partner replied in a tone that had a tinge of annoyance to it, "Did you forget that he's our friend too or something?"

"As much as I hate to admit it, Yang is right," Weiss chimed in with her arms crossed over her chest, "We're just as worried about Kaneki's well being as you are."

Ruby nodded in agreement at her partner's words and picked up from where she left off, "Yeah, so you go on ahead and check on him, we'll take care of the hostages."

"Understood," Blake stated as she nodded at her team leader's words, making her way towards the door immediately after.

"And by the way, if you can, leave some of the henchmen left for me!" Yang called out the moment she walked out of the room, "I might not be able to match the number of seconds I spent in here, but I still want to knock some teeth out!"

The bow-wearing bookworm felt an amused smile crawl onto her lips when she heard those words, but immediately frowned when she realized how loud her partner had said them.

'_I don't care how untrained these guards are, someone must've heard that,'_ she thought to herself as quickly crouched down and listened for any sound that might indicate someone approaching her location.

Her eyes narrowed out of suspicion when no sound reached her ears, outside of the sound that was coming from the room behind her that is. There were no footsteps approaching her position, actually she couldn't hear any footsteps at all.

'_Okay, something's definitely going on here,'_ she thought to herself, knowing that there was no possible way that every guard in the building could have stopped moving altogether all at once, '_They must've all left the building when I was speaking with the others.'_

'_That would explain why I wasn't able to hear them leave, but there's no possible way that they could've known I was doing that at the time unless…'_ the bow-wearing bookworm continued to muse before glancing back towards the door of the room and giving its frame a much more thorough look over.

Her eyes scanned the frame up and down twice before she noticed a dull red light emanating from the door's strike, one that she hadn't noticed due to the light coming in from the hallway. She moved back towards where the light was coming from and peered into the strike.

There, sitting deep inside of the strike, was a device she was immediately able to recognized from her stealth excursions in the past: a motion tracker.

'_A motion tracker?'_ she asked herself mentally, '_Does that mean they were using the hostages as a diversion to cover their retreat?'_

'_If they weren't planning on using the hostages to collect ransom money, what were they trying to do-'_ she began to ask herself once more, but stopped herself when she remembered that Kaneki still might be in danger, '_You can sit and wonder about it after you help Kaneki.'_

So with that thought in mind, she made her way out of the town hall and began her search for Kaneki.

* * *

Wind blew through Neo's multi-colored hair as she looked out through the open side door of the BullHead, which was currently carrying her farther and farther away from the settlement she had spent the past couple days taking over.

"You couldn't just stay dead, could you Haise?" she muttered under her breath, her fingers balling into tightly clenched fists as she thought back to the young man she had thought to be long dead no less than a couple of hours ago.

She thought she had stabbed him dead, and that if that didn't kill him, the fall out of the BullHead surely would. He was supposed to be dead and rotting out in the Emerald Forest, but as it turns out, he was far from it.

Actually, other than the new look he got for himself, she honestly thought that he never looked better.

Those five men she saw him take out before she had ambushed him were far from being on the same level as trained soldiers, but they should've at least lasted longer than five seconds.

He should've had that trademark guilty expression of his plastered all over his face when he finished dispatching them, but instead he wore an annoyed expression that made it seem like they were nothing more than a bother to him.

His hair should've been jet black and his gray eyes should've been soft and doe-eyed, but instead his hair was snow white and his eyes were hardened and narrowed to a point.

The first thing he should've done the moment he noticed her running towards her was turn and try to dodge the attack before trying to reason with whoever attacked him, but he instead lashed out at her with his sword with full intent of killing his attacker.

When their eyes first met, his should've been filled with recognition and betrayal, not confusion and cold indifference.

During their fight, he should've been trying his hardest to land a blow that would simply incapacitate her, not recklessly going after the killing blow with every attack, and he sure as hell shouldn't have been fighting with tentacles made of a liquid that sprouted out from his back.

These were all things Neo thought should've happened during their encounter and none of them turned out to be true, but despite managing to surprise her, they really didn't negatively affect her all too much.

Truth be told, she actually thought most of them, the two exceptions being his new appearance and his initial reaction to seeing her again, to be welcomed improvements over what they previously were.

However, there was one change, one that she had yet to list, that actually managed to sting her slightly: his smile, it should've been one that was kind and as radiant as the sun, not sadistic and cold as the surface of the ever crescent moon.

That kind smile of his was the same one that had always picked her up when she felt down, so it was probably natural for her to feel somewhat pained at seeing it so twisted. Then again, she herself was probably the reason why it had become so twisted in the first place, so who was she to complain?

"Uh, excuse me m'am," she heard one of the low-level thugs her boss had hired out to assist her on this endeavor say from behind her, prompting her to shake herself from her stupor glance at the man from over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow that told him continue speaking, "The boss is waiting for your report."

"Tell him that we've successfully gotten the information we need from out of our target," the multi-color haired woman instructed, "And also, tell him that I'll speak when we get back to base, I need some time to think about a few things."

The thug nodded his head and she directed her gaze back through the side door in front of her.

* * *

Blake didn't know what she expected to find when she finally came across Kaneki, but she definitely didn't expect what she actually found.

She didn't expect to find buildings with large chunks torn out of them, and she definitely didn't expect to find the white-haired teammate she was looking for sitting down on the ground with his back leaning against one of those nearly completely destroyed walls, head hanging so that his face wasn't visible from underneath his messy white hair.

For a while, she just stood there and stared at his hunched figure as her mind frantically searched for a way of approaching him.

Normally, she would've just went over to him and asked if he was alright, but she could tell that there was something off about him the moment she laid eyes on him. She remembered feeling something similar when he first started to regain consciousness after his fall out of the BullHead.

For whatever reason, the Kaneki she was currently staring at just didn't feel like the same person she knew and had befriended.

"My body seems to be pretty tenacious," she heard the white-haired young man began to murmur under his breath, using a bitter tone that made it seem like he said those words once before in the past, "If it's as damaging then emotional things have always had a greater effect on me."

"Hey Kaneki, are you al-" the bow-wearing bookworm began to ask him, but he cut her off before she could finish the question.

"Is that what I said all those months ago?" he asked himself, completely oblivious to her presence as he suddenly raised his head up and up towards the night sky and at the ever-crescent room, which revealed his once hidden face to the world and what was revealed filled her with a maelstrom of confusion and shock.

His eyes, which had always seemed to be filled with either emptiness or kindness, were filled with an emotion that she had only ever seen them bear once before after his initiation, but the amount that she had seen then seemed like a fraction of the amount being shown now.

Though, the single stream of liquid that ran down the right side of his face, something that she had only noticed because of the reflection of the moonlight that had been caused when he angled his head towards the sky.

Sadness, that was the emotion that had taken over his usually barren gray eyes, but one wouldn't be able to tell that from the expression he was wearing. His face retained that same stone cold expression that lacked any and all emotion, the one that he always wore.

He was shedding tears, yet his face didn't contort nor did his breathing hitch; he wasn't frowning, yet he was so obviously wrought with sadness.

It was almost as if feeling the emotion wasn't affecting him at all.

"Even after all I've been through, those words still manage to ring true," he said suddenly, snapping Blake from her daze almost instantaneously.

She watched as he moved his right hand from off on top his corresponding knee and placed it over his stomach, clenching it lightly with his black-tipped fingers as he continued speaking, "I wonder…"

Something suddenly emerged from the lower-right corner of his left eye and ran down the length of his pale face, catching the moonlight's reflection all the way down.

"... I wonder, if that's the reason why it hurts so much."

**-Chapter End-**

Well, that's a wrap folks. I don't really have much to say much about the story other than I already have the next chapter planned out so expect it to come out somewhere around a month as well.

I do however have something to say about the world outside this story however.

As some of you may know, Imperial Scans, the original English translators for the Tokyo Ghoul: re, have shut down down all operations. I have to thank and applaud the guys over at Imperial for consistently pushing out a good product and filling my life with the tragedy that is Tokyo Ghoul every week, for over a year, though I'm still sad that you guys are going to be gone.

Thankfully for those who still follow :re on a weekly basis, mangastream has accepted to take over the translating responsibilities for the series. I haven't seen most of their previous work, but I have read their 'Happiness' translation and I thought they did a pretty good job of it from what I've seen, so I do trust them to a good job.

Well, a good enough job that it'll last us until Twisted Hel finally catches up with the manga, which will probably be in the next couple years because they don't post regularly at all. Seriously Twisted, I love how clean and thorough your scans are, but you have to find a way of doing it more consistently.

So that's pretty much all I have to say. Hopefully you enjoyed the chapter and until next time, peace out!

P.S: "Fuck Touka."- Imperial Scans.


	7. Poem Interlude: Pain

Hey guys and welcome to a little teaser I put together to get you all in the mood for the next arc.

Before you start, I'm not going to put up an actual spoiler as to what's going to happen. No, I'm going to pull an Ishida and show you a poem I wrote in my free time. One that'll set the mood for the upcoming arc pretty well I hope.

This also totally isn't just a way to get an idea that popped into my head while I was showering out of my head. Totally...

Well, anyways, I hope you guys enjoy a sixteen year old's best attempt at a thing called poetry.

**-Poem Start-**

For the last ten days, I've felt nothing but pain.  
The lizard, he takes my fingers again, and again.  
One by one, they keep growing back.  
Again and again, until my nails turn black.

Down by sevens to keep myself sane.  
The lizard, there's a centipede eating my brain.  
The sharp legs inside, I just want it to end.  
A trickster appears, and then the flowers turned red.

Out of my confines, I ate and I ate.  
Turned into a snake and ate the lizard I hate.  
Months past this, I've felt almost nothing at all.  
Broke my fingers to feel something at all.

One day I look up to find the sky falling down.  
Take it upon myself to be the hero of the town.  
I run and save the maggot friends I love.  
Before they're all eaten by the ravenous doves.

There I find a knight dressed in armor of meat.  
We run each other through and our bodies concede.  
Crawled in a hole, a friend I've left behind.  
The friend who disappeared after I fell for a time.

Woke up to find something that I greatly did fear.  
Death itself, a man who killed many of my peers.  
The reaper was standing in a field of flowers.  
There was beauty in a field of beloved corpses.

I gaze upon the scene with horror and fright.  
Until I feel a sharp sting in my eye.  
Now, a familiar child shows me the error of our ways.  
Unfortunately, we were right at the end of our days.

Pain, I've felt pain nearly all of my life,  
And I'll feel even more in some given time.  
It'll start with the taste of honey running down my skin,  
And a talk with an entity I've kept buried within.

**-Poem End-**

So, that was my best attempt at poetry. Bear in mind, I'm sixteen so hit me with the worst you've got.

So yeah, as you can see, that was pretty angsty and detailed the physical pain that Kaneki had to go through at the start of the second half of the manga/anime .

And that pretty much means to expect some really serious shit to go down in the next arc. Like really serious. Maybe even Centipede-kun serious.

And if you guys want to know how far I've progressed with the upcoming chapter, I'm about done with the first scene which spans about three thousand words, just so you know I'm not being lazy.

Well, peace out guys.


	8. Chapter 7: The Want to Know

Hey guys and welcome to the real seventh chapter of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant.

First off, because I want to put a date on when I finished writing this, how have your holidays been? Good, I hope

Wait, what was that? You don't celebrate any of those holidays?

Well, to you, I say that you're a lucky son-of-a-gun because I hate Christmas. Mainly because I feel that the entire day has been commercialized to all hell and is nothing more than a cash grab by corporations, but that's a rant for another time.

Well pessimistic rant about how the general populace has made Christmas all about buying the love of the people that should already love unconditionally, I need to address the elephant in the room.

You may all be somewhat pissed on how I played with your heartstrings with that last post, but if it makes any of you feel better, I got a good laugh out of it and that's all that matters.

Wait, what was that? You think I'm being a bit of an asshat? Well, in the words of Alucard from Hellsing Ultimate: Abridged, "... I'm not apologizing."

So anyways, onto the actual chapter.

To put it bluntly, it's a fourteen (maybe fifteen) thousand word chapter of plot setup and dialogue. One that, fun fact here, I wrote almost entirely on my phone.

Why? I don't know why. My computer works fine except for the fact it drops my wifi signal at times. I just decided that it was better to write most of this on my phone, and totally not because I had school and this allowed me to work on my story there instead of doing my work.

Yeah, totally… Eh, I have a low D in pre-calculus.

Personal woes aside, I need to thank you all for a personal win, which you guys should already know by now. You guys got me over the half a century mark and I couldn't be more happier.

*Wipes proud tear from corner of my eye.*

So, how about we get this party started? You know, after the mandatory disclaimer that I swear will get more aggressive with every passing chapter.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

How many times do I have to say this? I don't own either of these series.

**-Chapter 7: The Want to Know-**

Kaneki felt the familiar sting of pain begin to course through him as he felt something slam into the very center of his stomach. His body immediately lurched forwards and his hands soon found their way down to the area the initial blow had impacted.

"C'mon, why don't you hit back?" he heard the person responsible for the pain he was feeling ask him.

He opened his mouth to respond to his attacker, but whatever argument he had prepared was cut off when he felt something collide with the left side of his face and sent him sprawling onto the floor.

Pain radiated from the affected portion of his face like a steady heartbeat and if it were not for the fact his hands were already preoccupied clenching at the also aching flesh of his stomach, he was sure that he would've been clutching the pained side of his face like it could actually remedy his affliction.

A frustrated growl reached his ears right before he felt something much more solid and bumpy smack right into the upper portion of his left bicep.

"You're seriously just going to let me beat up on you?" his attacker spat that question out at him with more venom than a DeathStalker's sting.

"Wow, you're even weaker than I thought you'd be," the attacker continued to taunt him mercilessly. "Then again, I probably shouldn't have expected much from you to begin with, especially since you do nothing but read those stupid books all day."

Kaneki grit his teeth as he felt the shallow pool of anger that had been welling up inside of him the entire exchange suddenly double in size. He wanted to retaliate, it didn't matter if it was physically or verbally, he just wanted to do something to defend himself.

Yet despite the ever-growing puddle of resentment that was continuing to build up inside of him, not a single muscle in his body moved as the words of his mother played once more in his head.

"_It's better to be hurt than to hurt others."_

Whenever he'd ever be tempted about hurting another person, those words would always ring through his head and remind him that there was never a need for a good person to hurt another, which allowed him the strength to continue lay where he was with his eyes clenched tightly shut.

"Still not going to do anything, huh?" his attacker spat at him, both proverbially and literally.

"Well, how about I-" the attacker began but the sound of his voice was suddenly replaced with the sound of flesh hitting more flesh and then was immediately followed by a pained yelp.

"Well, how about I get my face punched in?" an all too familiar voice mocking voice rang in his ears, which prompted his once shut eyes to fly open and snap up towards where the voice had came from. "Was that what you were about to say?"

There, staring down at his attacker with the same condescending look to her eyes that she always had, was a face that he never expected to see come to his rescue. Kaneki could only stare up at his savior with wide grey eyes as her lips suddenly dawned a wry smile that somehow managed to match the condescension in her mismatched eyes.

"If not, then I'm going to have to advise you to not take any tests any time soon," she continued to mock the downed boy who had been harassing him. "Y'know, since that would mean you're too dumb to even state the obvious."

"N-Neopolitan?" Kaneki stuttered out the name of his savior in a tone that he was sure didn't match the shock he was actually feeling.

He watched with a completely dumbfounded expression as she turned her head towards him and stared down at him with a kind of gaze that he never expected to ever see her use, especially directed towards him.

In the past, whenever she turned her eyes towards him, they would always be filled with the same look she had just given his attacker. This time, however, those same eyes were filled with a softness he had never seen her use with anyone.

Having been so accustomed to the 'holier-than-thou' look that had always made him flinch from how belittled it made him feel, he could only gawk at her in shock as she stared back at him. They remained in their respective dazes for what felt like an eternity, before it was finally when she took a step towards him and knelt down so that their eyes were on the same level as one another.

Reaching up, she placed a warm, soft hand onto his still aching face and caressed it lightly. Almost as if it was like a priceless antique that would shatter when put under too much of an outside force.

"Haise, tell me something," the girl in question called out to him suddenly, the sound of her uncharacteristically serious voice breaking the trance she herself had put him in. "Do you like getting beat up and insulted like that?"

"Wha-what, of course not!" Kaneki exclaimed defensively, completely shocked that she would even assume something like that about him.

Neopolitan shot him an unconvinced look and countered with, "Then why do you let yourself get beat up like that?"

He was half-tempted to ask her why she of all people cared about what happened to him, he even opened his mouth to do so, but he stopped himself and opted for a much more appropriate answer that consisted of shifting his eyes down away from hers.

"You're really going to give the girl who saved you from a bully the silent treatment?" she questioned him in a disbelieving tone that had the tiniest bit of a mocking undertone to it.

Sensing that she would probably never let the subject go if he didn't say something, he opened his mouth and half-heartedly let out a response of, "You don't need to worry about me, I'm fine."

"Really now?" the young girl in front of him scoffed at his response and countered with. "You don't look so 'fine' from where I'm standing."

"I'm fine, I swear," he tried once more to assure her of his condition and as if to prove that point, he shot her a reassuring smile and tried to push himself back up to his feet.

His arms wobbled heavily as he tried to do so, silently threatening to give out under him as he put a majority of his total weight onto them, but he still managed to get himself back to a position that somewhat resembled a standing. He said 'somewhat' because the moment he actually got his feet back under him, they immediately gave out and caused him to fall face-first towards the ground he had just gotten himself off of.

Kaneki clamped his eyes shut in preparation for the wave of pain that he believed was coming, but was surprised when he felt something warm and soft wrap itself around the upper portion of his body instead. His eyes shot open to see what had prematurely stopped his plunge back onto the cold hard dirt, and what he found caused his already wide eyes to widen even more.

Neopolitan, at some point during his collapse, had took a step forwards and caught him in her arms.

"Y'know, if that was your attempt at trying to reassure me that you're okay, then I have to say you're doing a pretty shoddy job of it," she joked lightly as she held him close to her body.

In fact, he felt close enough to her that he began to wonder if she could feel the rapid beating of his heart inside his chest.

"Why are you doing this?" he finally asked the question that had been on his mind ever since she first appeared, his voice being shaky and uneven as he spoke.

Kaneki had never been very close with Neopolitan and the same could be said vice versa. They hadn't even talked to one another for more than a couple seconds up until now and when they did talk, she would always speak to him as if he was one level below her. It made him feel as though she thought of him as nothing more than a pebble in a sea of gravel, and he honestly believed that assumption to be the case.

So why was she going out of her way to help an insignificant person like him?

Was it out of pity for him? A sense of justice that told her to step in on a such one-sided exchange? A simple case of fleeting curiosity?

He didn't know the answer to that question, but that didn't stop him from wanting to know.

"Ah, ah, ah~" she whispered into his ear in a singsong voice before continuing on to say. "You didn't answer my question, so I don't see any reason to answer yours."

Kaneki briefly contemplated not telling her what she wanted to know, but decided against it when he realized that his want to know her answer trumped his want to keep his secret.

"M-my mother," he replied somberly, averting his eyes back towards the ground as an all too familiar pit in his stomach formed once more.

"Your mother?" she repeated quizzically. "What does your mother have to do with you not being able to defend yourself?"

He didn't respond to the question immediately. He instead opted to take a couple of seconds to figure out what he wanted to say. Thankfully, Neopolitan allowed him the time he needed to think of an answer.

"My mother, as you probably already know," he began, taking a moment to swallow the lump that had taken residence in his throat before he resumed speaking, "died a couple of months ago."

"Well, yeah," she cut in suddenly, before bluntly adding, "I mean, you wouldn't be stuck in an orphanage if your parents were still alive after all."

Kaneki flinched at the bluntness of the statement and silently wondered how she could say such a thing so casually, but he continued on with his answer nonetheless.

"When she was still alive, she worked most of the day and all throughout the night to support the two of us." A small smile crossed his lips as he reminisced about his past, "She would even make paper roses in her free time that she would sell for more money."

"Thanks to all of the work she had to do, she rarely had enough time or time to talk with me very much," he stated, his voice getting softer with every word that escaped from his mouth. "But whenever she could, she would always help me read the books in my late father's study, and she always did so without complaining once."

"She was the light of my world." Kaneki could feel tears form in the corner of his eyes as he approached the final part of his explanation, "So when she died, I decided that I would honor some of the last words she ever said to me."

"'It's better to be hurt yourself than to hurt others'," he recited the words that his mother drilled into his head like he had said it a million times before, which wasn't true as this was the first time he's ever said those words outside of his own head. "So that's why I let myself get beat up like that."

Neopolitan remained deathly silent after he finished his explanation, he assumed that she was trying to find the words for a proper response.

Then suddenly, she unwrapped her arms from around him and moved her hands to his shoulders, where she gripped them tightly with her fingers and pushed him away from her body so that he was now facing her face-to-face.

"You know," she began in an uncharacteristically stern tone, "I'm starting to wonder if your mother cared about you at all."

Kaneki wasn't at all surprised by Neopolitan's reaction to his explanation, even he knew that those shouldn't be words a mother should say to their child for any reason. He learned that through watching the caretakers as they interacted with the other, much younger children.

Whenever he watched them, he would always take note as to how they would always never fully condemn the use of violence to the children they were charged with when there was an altercation. They would always explain to the child that there were times where violence was appropriate and times where using it was inappropriate.

Seeing that they were government officials, who were probably all screened for their effectiveness at being surrogate parents before being hired, he assumed that they knew what they were talking about when they spoke with children. Well, at the very least, more than her single mother who had only ever one child ever.

"What kind of mom would tell their own son that it was okay to be a punching bag?" she continued on in a tone that made it clear she was angry.

"First, she leaves you all alone in this orphanage and then she tells you to go live your life by that bull?" she ranted on, "What kind of mother does that to a kid, much less their own son?"

He didn't argue any of those claims because they were all valid points. There were times where he himself would question his decision to follow his mother's words, but then he would always remember that he didn't believe in those fleeting words because they made sense. He believed in them because they were told to him by his mother, the one person in the world he felt truly cared about him.

"Could you do me a favor and forget that she ever said that to you?" she asked him in a way that made the question seem more like a command than a suggestion.

"I…" he began, but the answer died in his throat as numerous questions surged to the forefront of his mind.

What should he do? How should he answer? Did she really care about his wellbeing, and if she did why?

Those were some of the questions that he had asked himself mentally, the most prevalent of which being the last.

It made no sense to him, why did she so suddenly care if he got himself hurt or not? They hadn't even really talked to one another in length up until five minutes ago, and when she did actually speak to him, she would do so with the highest contempt imaginable.

So why? What could make her so suddenly take interest in his safety?

He didn't know the answer. No matter how many times he racked his brain for one, no answer was found.

Kaneki wanted to know the answer. He wanted to know what possessed the girl in front of him to go and denounce the one thing he had left of his mother to cling onto.

So he balled his hands up into tightly clenched fists and asked, "You… you never answered my question did you?"

"Huh, what are you talking about?" she countered with a question of her own, using a tone that made him really wonder if she forgot about it or not.

"Earlier, I asked you why you were helping me and you said that you wouldn't answer my question until I answered yours," he reminded her as he tried his best to keep his voice even. "Now that I answered your question, I think it's only fair that I don't give an answer to yours until you answer mine."

The young girl who was currently holding him by his shoulders didn't respond to the question immediately and instead took a couple of seconds to contemplate an answer.

Then, after about thirty seconds of tension-filled silence between them, she opened her mouth and gave her response, "Sorry, but I don't think it's the right time for me to tell you that."

"T-then, I guess you're not going to get my answer either," he countered in a vain attempt to sound like someone she should take seriously, an attempt he felt failed the moment the first words left his mouth.

Kaneki could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as tension filled the air around them once more, resulting in another bout of silence between them that was as tense as the atmosphere, which was eventually broken by an exasperated sigh that came from the girl in front of him.

"Fine then," she stated as she released the grip she had on his shoulders, prompting his still unsteady legs to finally give way under him from the lack of support.

This time however, he was able to shift his weight so that he would fall onto his backside instead of his face, which he assumed to be a less painful alternative. The pain that resulted still caused him to clench his eyes shut, but he still found it to be the correct decision.

"If you're going not going to give me an answer now then I guess I have no other choice," she began as he felt something plop down to his immediate right, which prompted him to open his eyes and cast them towards where it originated.

Those same grey eyes widened when he found Neopolitan sitting next to him with her eyes cast directly towards him, flashing him a smile that didn't have its usual mocking feeling to it. Then almost as if the world was attuned with his own emotion, a ray of sunlight broke through the overcast that had plagued the sky above them the entire day, and fell directly onto the both of them.

"I'll wait until the day you're ready to give me an answer," she told him in a voice that made his heart skip in his chest, "until then, you can bet your butt that I'm never going to leave you alone."

* * *

Kaneki's eyes shot open and he found himself staring at an all too familiar plain-white ceiling, which he knew to be white despite the current darkness his room was enshrouded in. His body subconsciously sat itself up and his thumb immediately made its way over on top of his thumb, which allowed him to press down on it and release an extremely comforting crack to ring through confines of his room.

'_What…?'_ he began to ask himself mentally as his mind tried to wrap itself around the event he just saw.

There was no doubt in his mind that what he just saw was a memory of a real event that happened in the past. The memory didn't belong to him however, it instead belonged to 'Haise Sasaki', the man that Neo woman believed him to be during their initial confrontation.

From what he saw in the memory, he and Haise had somewhat similar upbringings. His mother was exactly like his own and seemingly worked herself to death trying to raise him, all the while spewing the same naive bullshit that had lead to most, if not all of the tragedy in his life.

Another thing he noticed to be similar in both scenarios was that Haise seemed to hold a deep love for literature as well, which subsequently lead to him developing an introverted personality that lead to him getting bullied by the some of the other kids his age.

Yet despite the similarities between them, he could still see several things that differed from his story to Haise's.

The first and most obvious to him being that he hadn't been sent to stay with his aunt after his mother had died, and had been sent to live in an orphanage instead. He really couldn't tell what the reasoning behind that decision was, but he assumed that either one of two things happened: either his aunt didn't want to be responsible for him like in his universe, or something had happened to his aunt that made it impossible for her to do so.

The next and less obvious change that he noticed between the two scenarios was that Haise felt older than he was when his own mother had died, but since the memory didn't specify how long it had been since the death of its owner's mother, he really couldn't tell if that statement was true or not.

Then came the biggest difference between their two upbringings, the girl who had walked right up to his other persona, saved him from a bully and uttered the words Haise had wanted to hear the most after the death of his mother, all in one fell swoop, Neo.

Kaneki didn't need to see all of Haise's memories to know that there had been something between the two of them. Hell, he didn't even need the memory he had just seen to figure that much out. Truthfully, the only thing he needed to do so was the pain the first of his inner persona's memories, the first one that he had personally witnessed, gave him.

There was no way a simple acquaintance could illicit such sorrow from him, not even during the time where he was still naive and weak. He was even able to pick up on some regret in the woman's voice when she ran Haise through with her blade, and he noticed some more during his encounter with her at the settlement.

So, it only made sense for the white-haired ghoul to assume that there was something going on between the two. Having only gone through two of Haise's memories up until now, including the one that he just experienced a few moments ago, he really couldn't tell how far that relationship went.

Did the two keep it strictly platonic, or did it enter a much more intimate realm at some point down in the future? Without more information, he would never be able to know and he'd be lying if he said that there was no part of him that didn't want to.

To put it bluntly, Ken Kaneki wanted to know about Haise Sasaki.

He wanted to know the story of the man whose body he was supposedly in, and the part Neo played in it; the reason why she wanted to help him break free from his mother's words, and the answer Haise gave to her proposal to do just that; and he definitely wanted to know what had happened between the two of them to cause her betrayal, and if his supposed other self had any indication it was coming beforehand.

It was almost as if he was reading one of Sen Takatsuki's novels again, where he would scan every sentence on the page multiple times, trying to find and understand every little detail the book offered between its covers.

The only difference being that, unlike those days he spent cooped up in his apartment reading line after line of Takatsuki's works for hours on end, he was the main protagonist of the story. Having read all of her books, he knew that was a distinction would not end well for him whatsoever, which meant that he was more than a little wary of delving into Haise's memories.

Despite knowing the dangers, Kaneki still found himself wanting to know, something he attributed to the fact that he knew looking into Haise's past just might give him some clue as to how exactly he ended up in Remnant in the first place.

He had already spent months living and learning at Beacon Academy, and he still wasn't any closer to finding a way back to his world than when he first arrived, which he recently realized might be due to a lack of effort on his part.

Ozpin was supposed to be the one who would go out and look for information on possible ways someone could go from one universe to an entirely different one, but that didn't mean he should be sitting around just waiting for the headmaster to find something.

The white-haired half ghoul now knew that if he wanted to get back to his universe and the friends he had been forced to leave behind, he would have to actually start looking for the information himself too.

Though something about the entire situation did bother him. Why was he just realizing this after having already spent two months here in Remnant?

He both figuratively and literally shook that thought out of his head the moment it crawled its way up to the surface, knowing that wasting time trying to figure out why he wasted time in the first place, wasn't a good way to spend the few hours of free time he had.

Knowing this, Kaneki slipped himself out from the confines of his bed and got himself ready to go out into the town, which basically meant that he got himself dressed in clothes other than his uniform, put his medical eyepatch on and slipped the mask Uta had made for him underneath his shirt, before exiting his dorm room.

* * *

"You know, I don't think I've seen Weiss this excited for something ever," Blake commented as she watched the usually calm and collected heiress of the Schnee fortune literally bounce up and down with anticipation for the day to come.

"I don't know, she seemed more excited about that mission we were sent on a couple weeks back," her blonde-haired partner, Yang, replied with the smallest hint of an amused smile on her lips, "Though, that could just be because it was more surprising."

"Yeah, I can see what you mean," the dark-haired teen conceded with a slight nod of her head. "Doing something like going out to 'welcome' the new students transferring in for the Vytal Festival seems like it would be right up her alley, doesn't it?"

"If by 'welcome', you mean go check out the competition for the combat tournament," Yang began in a tone that made it clear that she was able to catch the underlying message of the statement, "then yeah, I would have to say so."

A motherly sigh escaped from the blonde-haired teen before she added, "Well, I guess I should give her credit for her determination, and I suppose it would help to have a clue as to what we might face in the tournament before it actually starts."

"You're not going to get any arguments from me on that front," Blake replied in her usual deadpan tone. "I just wish she would actually just say that outright instead of hiding it behind fake hospitality."

The Vytal Festival combat tournament, the one time in the year where students from all over Remnant could leave the country their academy resided in and convene on a single location to do battle with one another, all for the sake of claiming bragging rights for the academy they represented.

It was the one event that almost every student in Beacon seemed genuinely excited for, something Blake heavily attributed to the fact that they were all heavily reminded about its importance every day during combat class by Professor Goodwitch.

That, and the fact that winning the tournament gave you the right to be called the undisputed best hunter in training in all of the four kingdoms, a title that was never taken lightly by anyone in Remnant. That title would give the winner the respect of millions of people all over the world, which was a detail that happened to be the reason most of everyone competed, since respect is the one thing that every person in their mid-to-late teens wanted in some way or the other.

She too wanted to win for the sake of gaining respect, but unlike her snowy-haired teammate, she only wanted the respect of a single person, not millions.

"You two ready to go?" the two partners nearly jumped at the sound of their ever-cheery team leader's voice coming from directly besides them.

Upon seeing their reaction, the young scythe wielder let out a guilty chuckle and added, "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you guys."

"Don't worry about it," Yang waved off her younger sister's worries both physically and verbally.

"You and I both know that I've pulled worse on you when we were younger," the blonde-haired brawler continued, tone still cheery and amused as ever despite having just been scared out of her shoes a few seconds prior.

"Yeah," Ruby agreed, a nostalgic smile crawling onto her lips as she continued, "though I'd think I have to scare you a lot more times for me to actually get even with you."

"So, are you two ready to go?" she asked the two awkwardly immediately afterwards, probably in an attempt to change the topic to something that didn't bring back embarrassing memories.

"Yeah, we were just waiting for you to get back actually," Blake answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

"So where's Kaneki?" she continued to ask with a bit too much curiosity in her voice for her own liking. "I thought you were going to his room to go get him."

"That's the thing…" the young team leader trailed off as she began scratching the back of her head sheepishly, "... he kinda, sorta wasn't there."

"What, did you try calling him then?" the bow-wearing bookworm questioned her team leader further.

The young teen nodded and answered with, "I did, but he said that he was busy running some errands and wouldn't be back until sometime in the afternoon."

Blake legitimately didn't know how to respond to that statement, mainly because this was the first time in the two months that Kaneki had been enrolled in Beacon, that he was too busy to not be able to spend time with the four of them.

In the past, whenever she would suggest they do something with one another, he would always put what he was doing at the time on the backburner and give her all of his attention. He would do the same with the others too, so she knew that she wasn't receiving any special treatment. It happened so consistently that it actually became a part of what she understood to be Kaneki as a person.

So for him to be suddenly unable to join them, worried her to no end, especially after she had seen him with tears streaming down his cheeks just a few days prior. If the sight of one of hte most stone faced people she had ever met, crying silently to himself wasn't enough to make her worry about him, then the words he said as those tears were shed definitely did.

"_If it's as damaging then emotional things have always had a greater effect on me… I wonder, if that's why it hurts so much right?"_

What did he mean by that? What had happened during the time she left him in those woods and time she found him sitting on a nearly destroyed building? What had caused the pain he was feeling?

Those were all questions she asked herself the moment she heard those words come from his mouth, and continued to keep asking herself to this day.

And while Blake wanted to know the answers to those questions, she also knew that they were all very personal questions, and that it would take a much larger relationship with him than the one she currently had.

As of right now, she considered her half-ghoul teammate as a friend on a level higher than her other friends, but that was only because she had a lot more in common with him than she did the others, and so they ended up spending a lot more of their free time with one another.

Yet despite that fact, she was still reluctant to call him a friend she was very close with. Something that she attributed to the fact that, like most of her other friends in general, they really didn't know a lot about one another.

She knew what Kaneki liked and he knew what she liked, and it just so happened that they liked a lot of the same things. That was enough for her to consider him a friend, and the same was probably true vice versa, but there was a difference between being a close friend and being just a friend.

Being 'just a friend', meant that two people were close enough that they could actively spend time with another and enjoy each other's presence, but that was essentially it.

Close friends, however, could tell one another their deepest thoughts without a single moment of hesitation; they could understand what the other was thinking without needing a single word to be spoken; and they could most definitely ask the kinds of questions that the ones the bow-bearing bookworm had festering in the recesses of her mind without batting an eye.

She knew that she would have to get closer to the young man to get the answers she wanted, and she didn't know if she wanted that to happen.

The problem wasn't that she was opposed to the idea of strengthening her friendship with him. She doubted anyone in their right mind would give up the opportunity to have a friendship of that kind and she definitely didn't mind if he'd be the one to fill that role, but there was still the problem of him wanting to return to his own world.

Did she really want to grow close to him knowing that there was a chance he might up and disappear one day?

That question, just like the ones that came before it, was one she didn't quite know the answer to yet, but there was one thing she did know.

It was that Blake Belladonna wanted to know about Ken Kaneki.

She wanted to know what made the white-haired young man tick, what happened to him in the past that made him the person he was today, what motivated him as a person, what he thought about the world around the world, and so much more.

It was almost like those few times in her life where she would be reading a book non-stop, not because the book itself was something that she wanted to read at all the times, but because she found herself so completely enraptured by one of the characters that it contained, that it was hard to stop scanning line after line for details about that one character alone.

The only difference being that, unlike those countless hours she spent tucked away in some far off corner of her hometown neglecting her combat training so she could read one of her precious books, the character she found herself so enraptured with was a living, breathing human being that she could interact with, and not a figment of imagination who was trapped inside the paper confines of a novel.

He could speak to her and she would be able to give a response back that he could actually hear. She could interact with him and it could greatly affect his personality as a whole. She could touch him and feel what he-

"Hey Blake," she heard the all too familiar voice of her blonde-haired partner break through the wall of thoughts that she had unintentionally put up around herself after Rub's announcement, "you still in there?"

Said bow-bearing bookworm blinked herself out of her own self-induced daze and focused her attention onto Yang, letting out a shaky response of, "Y-yeah."

"Really?" Yang asked her in a voice dripping with such a large amount of skepticism that she could feel it radiating off of her like it was body heat.

"It really didn't seem like it from where I was standing," she continued, carrying the skepticism she had earlier over to what she was currently saying. "It kind of seemed like you spaced out when you heard Kaneki wasn't coming with us."

"And forgive me for jumping to conclusions here, but I just couldn't stop myself from thinking that one might've caused the other," she pressed on further, her tone taking on a light teasing tone. "So tell me, my dear oh stoic partner of mine, could you actually be upset that he can't come along?"

For some reason, Blake could feel her cheeks heat up in embarrassment at Yang's claim and she opened her mouth to shoot back a counter, an act she found herself immediately regretting the moment she tried to do so when she heard herself stutter in the beginning, "I-I was just wondering where he was, is all."

Her partner stared at her with skeptical violet eyes, but decided to play along with what she was saying for one of two reasons: either she actually believed what Blake had said, or she was just playing along so she could tease her further.

"Yeah, I am curious as to what he means by 'going out to run some errands'," Yang mused out loud to herself. "Knowing him and his past track record, I bet he's doing something incredibly dangerous and life-endangering."

"You know something like trying to kill fifteen King Taijitu on a cliffside at the same time, or fighting off a posse of gun-wielding gangsters while on top of a skyscraper that's on the verge of exploding," she listed off possible scenario after possible scenario to Blake, none of which actually affecting her very much due to her confidence in him and his overall combat ability. "Oh, I know, maybe he's jumping out a burning BullHead while brawling with a group of assassins sent to kill him."

"Or maybe, he's out actually running errands like he said he would," Blake cut in, knowing that her partner would probably never stop unless she did. "You know not everything he does is intrinsically dangerous."

"You would know, wouldn't you?" the blonde-haired bombshell asked in a way that sounded strangely suggestive to her.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, I'm just saying that you two have been spending a lot of time with one another recently, or at the very least, more so than usual," she explained. "It kind of makes a woman wonder if there's something more than just a two person book club going on when we're not around."

The dark-haired teen fought the blush that once again threatened to seep up to the surface as she opened her mouth to respond, but after remembering what happened last time, she quickly stopped to compose herself before speaking.

"I-it maybe true that he and I have been spending a good amount of our time together," she began in a forced calm tone that was robbed of all credibility by the stutter that started her words, "but I assure you that we haven't done anything of that nature."

Ruby, who had been content with watching the two older teens go back and forth with one another, was now looking at the two with a quizzical expression before asking the two of them in a tone of the same vein as her stare, "Wait, I don't understand, what 'nature' are you guys talking about?"

* * *

'_Why do I have the feeling that someone's talking about me?'_ Kaneki asked himself, scrunching his nose to force down the sneeze that was threatening to break through to the surface as he approached the front doors of his second destination of the day.

He shrugged the feeling off before opening one of the two doors that made up the double door that lead inside. The moment he did so, he was instantly assaulted by the all too familiar smell of books, lots and lots of books.

Vale Public Library. It was the city's first ever library and the second largest in the city, only second to the more recently built library at Beacon Academy.

'_When was the last time I stepped into a library?'_ the snowy-haired teen asked himself as he walked into the stone-brick made building, his dull gray eyes naturally started to scan the spines of the books that lay on the tall wooden shelves that surrounded him the moment he stepped inside.

That was actually a really good question. He seriously couldn't remember the last time he even thought about going into a library on his own fruition. There were times where he would have to go to Beacon's library to check some books out for studying, but he found that he could always rely on either Weiss or Blake to have the certain book on hand already, so he never actually went to go check it out in favor of actually studying the material he was given.

His lack of presence inside of a library was also due to the fact that he was so extremely far behind his class in terms of his knowledge of Remnant's history, like so much so that he would look probably fare worse than a child at one of his history exams, that he had to spend a good majority of his first weeks in Beacon reading through textbook after textbook, trying to get to a point where he was somewhat close to the level his other classmates were on at the beginning of the year.

There was also the fact that he had been spending a good portion of his free time, or at the very least the free time he didn't spend studying, with his teammates. He very well could've considered this to be a contributing factor to his lack of library time in the past month, but decided against when he realized that doing so would be labeling that time he spent with them as a mandatory thing he had to do because he had no other choice in the matter.

Kaneki felt that saying that would be the same as taking all of the relationships he's built up until this point, pouring an entire gallon of gasoline on top of all of them, burning them until they're nothing but a pile of ashes, and then throwing a live hand grenade on top of said ashes for good measure.

The time he spent with them was not time he felt was at all wasted. He truthfully felt that he needed the time he spent with his teammates, and not just the big moments they shared with one another. He felt as though he needed every single second he spent with them.

The reason as to why he felt that was completely lost to him, but he couldn't deny that was what he felt.

"Ah, excuse me, young man?" he heard a soft feminine voice call out to him from outside the haze of thoughts that he had built around himself by mistake.

He blinked out of his momentary haze and found that he was staring at a row of books on a shelf whose authors all seemed to be under the letter 'M'. There staring right at him from between two other books was the leather spine of a book called _Unreliable Truth, _written by someone, presumably a woman named Maureen Murdock.

"Young man, excuse me, are you alright?" the same voice that stripped him of his earlier stupor rang out once more in his ear, prompting the artificial half ghoul to glance over to where it had come from.

There staring at him with a pair of crimson-red eyes, which were angled slightly downwards due to the fact that she was slightly taller than he was, was a woman who seemed to be somewhere in her late twenties, or early thirties.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine," he replied in an almost robotic tone due to his vast experience with similar scenarios in the past.

"Really?" she asked in a tone that made it clear that she didn't buy he was saying. "You've been staring at that bookshelf for fifteen straight minutes now."

The artificial half ghoul let out a sheepish chuckle and flashed her a smile of the same emotional vein before replying with, "Yeah, I sort of have a tendency of doing that, so you don't need to worry yourself too much about it."

"So you're a bit of an airhead then? Didn't really expect that."

Ignoring the comment about his tendency to lose focus from time to time, he raised a curious brow and asked, "What exactly did you expect then?"

"One of those strong, serious types who somehow manage to remain focused on something despite what's going on around them," she stated with a matter-of-fact tone to her voice.

"Truth be told, I'm actually kind of disappointed," the woman added with a tad bit of disappointment to her voice before he could voice his response. "We don't get a lot of those types around here and I really wanted to see how many of your buttons I could get away with pushing before you finally stopped me."

"Oh, do you work here or something?" Kaneki asked her after catching what she in her prior statement. "You said something about not getting many of those types around here, so I thought-"

"Caught that did you?" she cut him off suddenly. "So that must mean you're a perceptive airhead then. That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one."

"Oh, and yes, I do work here," she added as if she just remembered he had asked that question. "I'm actually the librarian in charge of this fine establishment."

"Hm, well, that's awfully convenient," he replied, accidentally voicing his thoughts out loud due to his surprise.

"Would you mind telling me if this library has any computers that are open to public use then?" he asked in the same sheepish tone as the fingers of his left hand cupped themselves around his chin. "I was kinda hoping to use one to research a topic for a paper I'm doing."

"Ah, yes, of course we do," the woman let out an exasperated sigh after she said that though, implying that she got the question a lot and really didn't like answering it, which immediately made him regret asking. "They're off towards the back end of the library, near the shelves labeled 'R' through 'S'."

He let out a chuckle that he felt properly emulated the awkwardness he felt inside and attempted to salvage the conversation by asking, "I suppose you get that a lot, huh?"

"You really have no idea," she groaned in a way that made it sound like she meant it to be louder, but held back due to her surroundings. "You know how much time I have to spend everyday arranging these books, and what thanks do I get for my hard work and dedication?"

"Not much?" he offered despite knowing that it wouldn't help his current situation whatsoever.

"None at all!" the dark-haired librarian exclaimed in a way that matched her groan from earlier.

In response, the snowy-haired teen stared at the woman as she composed herself and when she did, she let out another exasperated sigh and replied, "Sorry about that, I bet you have better things to do than listen a dusty old librarian like me rant about rearranging books."

"No, it's alright," he attempted to assure her. "I can totally understand you being frustrated by constantly having your work go unnoticed."

"Does that make it safe to assume that you've had experience with the subject too?" she asked him in a manner that he found awfully similar to a certain blonde he knew. "I'm guessing from your boss at work, or maybe a girlfriend?"

Just then, Kaneki received flashbacks of his time living with his aunt and how she would never acknowledge him as human being, much less as someone who deserves praise, no matter what he accomplished.

"Ah, that's..." he began but trailed off, hoping that she'd catch how sensitive the subject was for him.

Thankfully, she seemed to catch her folly and immediately began trying to do damage control on their conversation, "Oh, my bad, I guess that's a bit too much of a sensitive subject for a stranger to ask someone they just met, huh?"

The rinkaku-type gave a slight nod in response to the librarian's question, which prompted her to let out an awkward laugh.

The moment her laugh subsided, she adverted her crimson-red eyes off to side and asked, "Um, if it's alright with you, could you just forget that I ever said that and just start this conversation over from the beginning?"

"Sorry, but I kind of have some research to do..." he trailed off, hoping that she would understand what he was implying once again.

But unlike last time, she didn't seem to catch the underlying meaning to his words and just kept trying to force the conversation along for some reason that was completely beyond him.

"Oh, I know!" she exclaimed, somehow managing to sound loud while keeping her voice at the volume of a whisper. "I can walk you over to the computers and on the way there, I can try to fix this conversation!"

'_Hm, there's something off here…'_ he thought to himself as he narrowed his eyes a fraction at the woman standing in front of him.

What she was trying to do made no sense to him. This was going way beyond her trying to keep a good first impression with him.

There was no way any normal person would try and keep a conversation this awkward going, and there was no way she would try and lead him into a trap in such a public area.

So what was her goal with trying to keep their conversation going?

"So what do you say? You want to entertain the whims of a dusty old woman like myself?"

'_Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this?'_ he asked himself before nodding his head in agreement, subconsciously knowing that he probably wouldn't be able to get rid of her otherwise.

* * *

Kaneki let out a tired sigh as he leaned back in the slightly uncomfortable wooden chair the library had provided for anyone looking to use their public-use computers, rubbing his eyelids with the thumb and index finger on his right hand to get rid of the strain the computer's blue light had put on his eyes. Something he desperately needed to do after having just spent the majority of the last hour and a half scouring the internet for any information that pertained to Haise Sasaki.

And unsurprisingly, his search didn't give him any results that actually helped him.

He first tried searching the name 'Haise Sasaki' in Remnant's major search engine, but found nothing other than links to social media accounts with similar names, which of course prompted him to look through the results that were given to him.

Of course, the end result of that search didn't net him the results he was looking for, but he really didn't expect anything to come from it to begin with so he wasn't really disappointed when he ended up finding nothing.

He then tried looking up the name 'Neopolitan', hoping that it would get him information on the person who inspired his search, but that resulted with so many other miscellaneous results that he gave up the moment the page loaded in and presented him with three straight links to recipes for neapolitan-flavored ice cream.

So after failing to find anything on the two people he was specifically searching for, the rinkaku-type started to comb through new stories on major crimes that happened in the area since he knew Neopolitan to be a criminal of some sort and unlike his previous attempts, he actually found something. It wasn't anything that was new news to him, but it was something nonetheless.

Apparently, about six months ago, there was a robbery at a dust shop that was broken up by none other than his team leader herself. The men she managed to defeat wore the same suits as the men who helped Neopolitan take an entire settlement hostage, which probably meant that the two events were related.

That would've been helpful information, if he didn't already know that due to the first stop he had to make today, which netted him much more information with half the incessant boredom attached to it.

'_This isn't going to get me anywhere,'_ he thought to himself while the utter exhaustion he was feeling somehow managed to leak into the voice that he was making in his head.

Truth be told, he really didn't know why he decided to come here. He first assumed that he was doing it because he wanted more information and just didn't want Ozpin knowing what he was looking into, but he now just realized that what he was currently doing would never get him the information he wanted.

First off, the Neopolitan woman was a criminal and if Haise was indeed associated with her, than there was no way he was going to be able to find anything on them by simply looking it up on the internet.

Kaneki wasn't the most tech-savvy person in the world, but he did understand the mind of a person who didn't want to get caught by law enforcement, and he knew that there was no way any logical person would be stupid enough to have a very large footprint online if they didn't want to get caught.

So the question remained, what drove him to even entertain this idea to begin with? He already located and secured a wealthy font of information with his first stop of the day, which would've been more than enough progress for him to justify heading back to Beacon, but even then, he was still reluctant to head back without coming here first.

It was almost as if there was something that was unconsciously drawing him here to this library. Maybe the location itself was tied to Haise in some way?

That really wouldn't surprise him considering that he too had a penchant for literature, but that just raised the question of how he was related to Vale's second largest library.

Did he come here to check out books, or maybe he worked here in his free time?

'_I'm doing it again, aren't I?' _he inwardly groaned as he ran the black-tipped fingers of his left hand through his white hair.

There was no way he was going to be able to find an answer to that question by asking himself and only himself, and thankfully, he knew someone who could answer that question.

"So how's the research been going along?" asked just the person he was thinking about.

'_Well, speak of the devil,' _he thought to himself as he turned to face the woman that had called out to him.

He flashed the librarian a friendly smile when she came into view and began scratching his chin with his left finger, before replying with, "Yeah, but I have a question I wanted to ask you."

"Really?" she asked in a tone that made it clear that he had piqued her interest. "Well then, go ahead and ask, and I'll try my best to answer."

Nodding in response to her acceptance, he asked the question that was plaguing his thoughts, "Alright, um, did you ever happen to know a guy by the name of Haise Sasaki?"

She blinked at him owlishly before her crimson-red eyes widened in realization as she gave her answer in the same whisper-yell, "You know what, I actually do!"

"He's actually a regular here, or well, _was _a regular," she explained. "He hasn't stopped in for over two months now, so I unfortunately had to revoke his status as a regular."

"That so?" Kaneki asked with a raised eyebrow, cupping his chin with his index finger and thumb before he continued speaking. "Were you two close?"

The dark-haired woman chose to not answer his question immediately and instead opted to take a few moments to contemplate what she was going to say before she answered, "Yeah, I would say so."

"I know that this may come as a surprise to you considering my current choice of occupation, but there was a time where I really didn't care much for books," she began to explain in a tone that made it pretty obvious that she was reminiscing on her past interactions with the young man.

"Back then, I actually thought that reading was nothing more than a waste of time, but he helped me find a way to derive some enjoyment from the act," she continued, stopping to gesture to herself with a wide sweep of her arms before adding, "and eventually, I liked reading so much I somehow ended up working here of all places."

Just then, he felt an all too familiar pain begin to grow in the area of his stomach, which he took as a sign that he was heading down the right path with their conversation.

"So how do you know him?" the crimson-eyed librarian asked him. "He wasn't the most social butterfly, so I highly doubt you heard his name in passing."

It was now the snowy-haired half ghoul's turn to take a couple seconds to carefully contemplate his next answer.

"I don't really know him perse," he began, which was actually quite true considering the circumstances. "I have talked to him, but all I really got from the conversation was his name and his recommendation of this library."

She let out a tired sigh and began shaking her head in response to his statement before replying, "Such a sweet boy, hasn't talked to me in months, and he's still trying to get this library business."

"Strange, from the way you're describing him, he really doesn't sound like he's someone who would just stop talking to a friend for two months," Kaneki commented in hopes that it'd get her to say something that might relate back to Haise's past. "Why do you think he just up and disappeared like he did?"

"If I had to put money on a reason, I would have to say that it was probably because of that girl he's so infatuated with," the dark-haired woman grumbled bitterly. "She was one of those people you could just look at and figure out that she was nothing but trouble."

"Really?" he asked with a faux skepticism to his voice. "I don't know him very well and even I know that he doesn't seem like the type of person to hang around someone like that."

"Just my point," she answered with a nod. "He's not someone who you'd picture hanging around people like her, that's why I'm so worried about him."

"Wait, are you implying…?" he trailed off with a shocked expression that was one hundred percent faked.

"Oh, of course not, I doubt she'd go as far as doing something like, well, like that," the dark-haired woman assured him. "At worst, I'm worried about her breaking his heart, not running it through with a knife."

The artificial half ghoul couldn't stop himself from laughing at how ironic her words turned out to be in retrospect. He wanted to keep asking her more questions now that it had become clear to him that she was once a part of Haise's past. But even he with his all-encompassing desperation to learn more about Haise Sasaki, knew that there were limits as to how many questions you could ask someone before they started to suspect something, and he'd rather not ruin the chance of possibly obtaining yet another valuable font of information by accidentally asking said font too many questions.

"I guess I've been reading way too many tragedies," he joked lightly as he stood himself up from his chair and flashed the librarian a smile before initiating his exit strategy out of this situation.

* * *

Kaneki contemplated what he learned today as he walked down the sidewalk that would eventually lead him to the subway tunnel that would take him all the way back home to Beacon.

There was the fair chance that the young woman he knew as Neopolitan dragged Haise Sasaki into the criminal underworld. If he had to give a guess as to how she managed to do so, he'd wager money that his inner persona had a fear of being alone just like he did, and she manipulated that fear and whatever feelings the young man had for her at the time to get him to do whatever she wanted.

He winced slightly as a familiar pain in his abdomen suddenly surged to life, making it seem like Haise was actively rejecting the idea from deep inside his consciousness, which he highly doubted to be the actual case in this particular scenario.

If that truly was the case and the pain he was feeling was being controlled by an outside force trying to contact him, the question of why it had only sparked up when he started interacting with Neo once again could be easily brought up as a counter argument.

Was it because Neo was such a large part of Haise's life that he didn't feel the need to wake up until she popped back up in it again?

'_Yet another question I don't know the answer to, huh?'_ he thought to himself as he reached up and ran all ten of his black-tipped fingers through his snow-white hair, having to fight down the suddenly growing urge to pull chunks of it out in frustration.

Questions, questions, and more questions. That was the one and only result of his search today.

Any answers he got just seemed to lead to another question, any questions he would ask himself would spawn three more in his head, and any of those other questions seemed to do just the same. It was already starting to feel like he had run around race track a hundred times in preparation for a race he knew was never going to come, or maybe the more accurate comparison would be him trying to bring down a wall made of solid steel by slamming his head against it.

Both would've felt like lost causes from the start, and that's exactly what he felt about his search right now. He didn't realize it until now, but what he was trying to do was basically the same as following a trail of breadcrumbs to find a chest of buried treasure.

To unravel the mysteries of someone's entire life was no easy task and Kaneki was starting to feel that he was having the same problem he had when he first started sparring with Weiss. He felt as though his search was aiming for too high a goal, but unlike trying to learn how to use a sword before a set date, he actually needed to hit that mark to get the results he was looking for.

There could be no settling this time, he needed one hundred percent accurate results and he wasn't going to get it with the information he currently had. He did obtain two new sources of information that he could easily exploit when he needed to, but in the end they were nothing more than more breadcrumbs on the trail for him to follow.

The snowy-haired young man took in a deep breath through his nostrils in hopes that it would quell his frustration, all the while reminding himself that he had gotten somewhat similar results when he first started searching for Kanou. But as he did so, an all too familiar scent of caught in his nostrils and drew his attention away from his thoughts.

'_Coffee,'_ he thought to himself as he turned towards the direction his nose was telling him the smell was coming from, said nose wiggling as he sniffed the air once more to double check that the smell truly did exist.

'_There's no doubt that's coffee…'_ he began when he confirmed the origin of that smell, '_... and it smells pretty good too.'_

He couldn't fight down the smile that had spread across his lips as he began walking in the direction the smell was leading him.

* * *

Coffee. Kaneki couldn't help but notice the sense of irony that was contained in every sip.

The deep brown, nearly black liquid was widely known throughout the world as one of the most bitter drinks in mass production. But to him, it was one of the sweetest things he got to consume nowadays, especially when compared to the normally revolting taste of Grimm flesh.

That wasn't to say that coffee was supposed to taste bitter. No, that was a misconception spawned by the intentional burning of beans by mass producers to hide the usually poor quality of their beans.

Good coffee was supposed to have a fragrant taste to it, which was something he didn't even know until he started frequenting Anteiku. Before then, he had read about what coffee should've tasted like, but he couldn't comprehend what that had meant until he tasted it for himself.

He glanced down at the porcelain-white cup that contained said liquid and smiled at it warmly as he brought the vessel up to his lips to take a sip of its contents once more, relishing the familiar fragrant taste of the piping hot liquid traveled over the tastebuds on his tongue and down his throat, leaving a pleasurable warmth lingering in his throat as it traveled down to his stomach.

'_Still not as good as the manager's though,'_ he thought to himself as placed the cup back down onto table he was sitting at. '_But then again, after all the years he spent making it, I doubt that there's anyone out there could even come close to matching his skill.'_

"I can't believe we lost that guy," Kaneki heard a gruff voice coming from a nearby stall. "We had him in the palm of our hands and we somehow lost him."

Curious as to what they were talking about, Kaneki brought his coffee-filled cup to his lips and took a discreet glance over at them as he took another sip of the piping hot liquid. There sitting at one of the nearby stalls were two sunglasses-wearing men in the same white dress shirt and black slacks, something he assumed to be an uniform of some sort.

"You're seriously still on about that punk faunus from earlier?" he heard another man with a deeper, smoother voice ask. "I get that you're frustrated, but you need to get your head back in the game so we can get these dust shop robberies all sorted out. You know, _before_ the Schnee Company brings that ship of theirs into the docks."

'_Should they really be talking about things like that out in the public?'_ he asked himself before shaking his head in disbelief and returning his attention back onto his thoughts.

Or rather, he tried to return his attention back onto his thoughts, but was stopped from doing so when he heard the bell that rings whenever opens the front door chime out from directly behind him.

He was going to ignore whoever had walked in, but was forced to pay attention to them when the sound an all too familiar English-accented voice call out to his name suddenly, "Kaneki?"

"Kaneki, is that you?" asked the voice, which prompted him to turn around to see out if his suspicions would turn out to be true.

And it just so happened that they indeed were correct, because the moment he turned around, he found a familiar rabbit-eared faunus standing in the middle of the front door with her chocolate-brown eyes widened in surprise.

The snowy-haired teen opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by the sound of another, this time unfamiliar voice coming from directly behind her.

"Hey Velvet, what's the holdup?" asked the voice as its owner attempted to lightly push the brown-haired young woman out of the way with a gloved hand. "I thought we were going inside?"

Velvet immediately snapped out her daze and moved to the hand's will, stepping out of the way to reveal a fashionably-dressed young woman of the same age.

"Ah, oh, sorry about that," the rabbit-eared faunus replied as she did as she always did when she was embarrassed and rubbed her elbow bashfully. "It's just that I sorta found someone I know."

"Really?" the fashionably-dressed woman asked before turning her head towards him. "Is that him over there?"

Velvet answered her companion with a sheepish nod before verbally adding, "Yeah, that's him."

The unknown woman strided over to him, bent over so that her eyes were visible from behind the pair of sunglasses she was wearing, and scanned him up and down with a pair of dark-brown eyes.

Having grown rather used to being scrutinized so openly thanks to the time he spent trying to gain allies in the ghoul community back in his own world, he was able to return her stare without feeling the least bit uncomfortable.

The two of them stared at each other for a couple of seconds before she broke their stare down by standing straight up again and saying, "Alright, you pass."

Confused as to what she meant by that, Kaneki narrowed his eyes at her and asked, "Pass what exactly?"

"Physical inspection," the woman replied bluntly. "I was making sure, and don't take this the wrong way, that you weren't as weak as you seemed off first glance alone."

Kaneki's eyebrow twitched at the blatant shot at his less than impressive physical stature and took in a deep, calming breath through his nostrils to quell the annoyance that was growing inside of him.

"Well, you said that I passed your inspection," he pointed out to her, cracking his index finger as he began his counter-offensive, "so I'm assuming you found that old adage of 'looks being deceiving' to be true?"

Velvet's companion simply nodded in response before turning her attention back on the faunus she entered the cafe with and asked, "You called him 'Kaneki', right?"

"Uh, yes, but his full name is Ken Kaneki," the rabbit-ear-bearing teen answered with a nod immediately, albeit both were delivered with a bit of uncertainty. "Most people just call him by his last name due to his own personal preference."

In response to the faunus's almost soldier-esque response, the woman let out a sigh and shook her head disbelievingly as she asked, "Velvet, we've been on the same team for almost two years now, how many times do I have to remind you?"

"Stop treating me like I'm your CO," she finished that train of thought with a tone that made it clear to anyone listening that this wasn't the first time she had said those words.

"A-ah, sorry!" she exclaimed flusteredly as a faint blush began to stain her otherwise pale cheeks. "Force of habit."

Her companion, though at this point she seemed more like the leader than she did the companion, let out an exasperated sigh and replied, "It's alright, but you have to realize how embarrassing it is for me to be treated like I'm your superior when we're out in public like this.

"Sorry, won't happen again, ma'a-" the faunus began to say, but caught herself three-thirds of the way through, "- I mean, Coco."

The companion/leader shook her head once more and let out what felt like her tenth sigh of the conversation before replying with, "Well, I suppose I should leave you to talk with your friend here."

"Oh and Velvet," the sunglasses-wearing woman began as she took a step towards the rabbit-eared faunus and whispered something into her ear that elicited a mad blush.

Kaneki was unable to pick up on what she said due to his lack of the naturally enhanced senses that most full-ghouls had, but he didn't really mind since he knew it probably wasn't meant for his ears to begin with.

He watched as the companion/leader that was apparently named Coco broke away from Velvet and stepped back outside the cafe to a destination he did not know and did not care to know, before turning his attention back onto his chocolate-haired classmate.

"Sorry about all of that," she apologized when she saw that Coco was gone, "I've always had a hard time talking to her, and I was so surprised to see you that I couldn't really think straight there for a minute."

"Don't worry about it," he assured her while flashing her his usual smile, which seemed to both calm her down some and inject her with a dose of confidence the moment it appeared.

"So who exactly was that?" he proceeded to ask. "I'm assuming she's your team leader, right?"

"Was it that obvious?" she quipped as she slid into the chair that was directly across from him, which caused an amused snort to exit his nostrils.

"On a more serious note, however; yeah, she's my team leader," she proceeded to explain. "Her name's Coco Adel, leader of team CVFY."

"CVFY?" he repeated with a faux incredulity. "Why do I suddenly feel like Oobleck had a hand in naming your team?"

"Haha, very funny," she replied sarcastically with a roll of her eyes. "At least my team's acronym actually derives a letter from my name, unlike a certain someone I know."

"Again with this? I thought I already explained this to you. The reason why my name name isn't used in the acronym is because there was no way a K would make an actual word with the other the four."

"What RWBY-2K not good enough for you four?" Velvet asked, which elicited a snicker from the both of them.

Kaneki couldn't stop himself from smiling at the progress the two of them had made since they first met, which was a time where they could barely go a couple of sentences without there being a sudden awkward silence between the two of them.

Now, they were used to one another's tendencies, they were conversing more regularly. They would still encounter a conversational roadblock from time to time, but that was something he believed would also improve with time.

"So what exactly are you doing here?" she asked him, raising a single brow at him as she crossed her arms over chest. "You come here with your teammates, or something?"

The snowy-haired half ghoul shook his head and answered with, "No, I was just out running some errands and I thought I stop in here for a cup of coffee."

"How about you?" he proceeded to ask. "You with your other teammates, or is it just you and Coco?"

"Well, I was with my other teammates when we first left Beacon, but the other two had to go pick some stuff up for our upcoming mission, and-" the rabbit-eared Faunus began but he cut her off halfway into the explanation.

"Wait, what do you mean 'upcoming mission'?" he asked as it was now his turn to be curious about what she was doing.

"Oh, I must've been so busy with prepping that I completely forgot to tell you about it," she replied sheepishly as she once again began running her elbow. "My team and I are being sent out on a mission in a couple days and we probably won't be coming back for a couple weeks."

"Really?" he replied as he blinked at her owlishly. "Well, I suppose this makes us even then."

"Huh, what do you mean?"

"Don't you remember? I went on that week-long mission to the settlement without telling you, so you going on a mission makes us even."

Velvet blinked at him owlishly before a crestfallen expression replaced the dumbfounded one she once wore.

"R-really, that's all you have to say?" she asked in a way that reminded him a lot of a child who had wished for one thing for their birthday and got something else instead.

A stab of guilt ran through his heart as he stared at her deflated expression, automatically knowing what he did wrong.

No one liked going away from people they cared about for extended periods of time, but knowing that those same people were going to miss you while you were gone, made leaving them a little bit easier for most people.

That's probably what Velvet wanted to hear when she told him and he had mistakenly told her a joke instead in hopes of lightening the mood.

Knowing that it was too late to outright say what she wanted to hear, he quickly thought up a way to circle back to it and immediately put that plan into action.

"Wait, were you hoping that I'd miss you?" he asked her, all the while hoping that she would take the bait.

"W-what, o-of course not!" she exclaimed shakily, her pale cheeks staining themselves red once again. "I just…"

"It's just that I missed you when you were gone at that settlement, and I just wanted to know that you'd feel the same if I were to go somewhere," she admitted with a deep blush after a defeated sigh escaped from her lips.

"You know, that's a stupid thing to want to know," he replied to her bluntly as he pretended to absent-mindedly swish the remnants of his coffee in its cup, which made her flinch and hang her head in response.

"I'm sor-" the rabbit-eared faunus began, but he cut her off before she could finish her apology.

"You want to know why?" he asked her his tone as dismissive as before, stopping his crestfallen friend in her proverbial tracks. "It's because you should already know that I'm going to miss you."

Upon hearing that, her head snapped up towards him and she sputtered out a befuddled, "Wait, what?"

"What, did you seriously think I was going to say that I wasn't going to miss you?" he asked her with faux hurt to his voice.

"Velvet, you're my friend and you should know by now that I'm always going to miss you if you go somewhere for any amount of time," he told her as he reached over across the table separating them and placed a hopefully comforting hand on her shoulder.

"And since we're already on the topic, you don't have to feel bad about wanting to be missed," he continued. "Being missed by someone means that you're a big enough part of that person's life that the person would feel sad if you were to disappear from it, after all."

"Truth be told, I would be more insulted to know that you didn't care if I missed you," he finished.

Velvet didn't respond after he finished speaking and instead opted to cast her gaze down towards the ground as her earlier blush deepened, which was something he expected her to do after having seen her do so many times during their nearly two month long stint of friendship.

Past experience told him that it was probably best to let her mull through her thoughts and so, that's what he did. His hand never leaving her shoulder the entire time.

It took her about two minutes, but she finally woke from her daze in a way that made it seem like she had temporarily forgotten where she was.

"A-ah, sorry, I spaced out there didn't I?" she asked, but he didn't answer because he felt that it was directed more towards herself than it was him.

"Thank you," she added with a sheepish smile that coupled with the blush that was slowly fading from her face, he couldn't help but call the sight cute.

Feeling that the situation had been resolved, he removed his hand from her shoulder and decided to switch the topic of their conversation to a more mundane topic, "So what do you want, to drink I mean?"

"Oh, uh…" she trailed off embarrassedly. "This is my first time coming here, so…"

"Ah, then I suggest you get a cup of their dark roast," he replied, picking up his own cup and raising it towards her before taking a sip of it, in a gesture that he hoped she understood the meaning of.

"Oh, alright then, um…" she trailed once more as she glanced over at one of the cafe's waiters, who was busy wiping down the table the two men he assumed to be police officers once occupied.

Having had the same problem before, he was able to understand what she meant by that gesture and called the waiter over once he saw that said waiter had finished.

'_I wonder…' _he began to ask himself as he simultaneously told the employee Velvet's order, '_Did my social ineptness make me look that cute when I used to do that?'_

* * *

In the end, Kaneki ended up spending the rest of the day in that cafe with Velvet and they hadn't decided to part from one another until it was close to sunset.

"Are you sure you don't want me to walk with me back to Beacon?" he asked his friend with a voice of concern.

She smiled and repeated her previous answer with more explanation this time, "It's alright, I still need to meet up with the others."

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow in Oobleck's?"

"Yeah," she replied with a nod of her head.

"And, um, if you don't mind me asking this," she began as she started to rub her shoulder again, "Would you mind if I ask that you help me catch up with the rest of the class once I get back?"

He blinked in response to that question and smiled before stating, "You already know the answer to that question."

Her smile seemed to glow brighter as she nodded her head in response and turned to walk away in the other direction, and after a couple of seconds, she turned a corner and left him standing where he was. Completely and utterly alone, waiting for the next bus to take him back home to Beacon.

'_So when exactly does the next bus come, again?'_

* * *

By the time Kaneki got back to Beacon, the sun had already set and the moon was now sitting prominently in the sky, already three-quarters of the way through its cycle.

He was walking down the main path, the one that most people would have to take if they wanted to reach any of the main buildings.

The path itself was lined with greenery, from the neatly trimmed grass to also well-trimmed trees, everything surrounding the path was green. Well, everything that wasn't made by humans was green.

Along the way, there were benches painted white and the path itself was made of a smoothed down stone that was very clearly painted over. Then, there was the giant stone statue that marked the diverging of the three paths, each path leading to another, equally important building.

The statue depicted a pair of hunters standing over a cave that contained a beowolf, one hunter being male and the other was female.

When he first saw it, he assumed that it was there to help remind students that, despite the fact the Grimm were an ever present danger, they would always stand over them in triumph and even now, he still believed that was its purpose.

Maybe there was another meaning to it, one that was more profound than what he could see at surface level and he would be able to see if he looked at it for more than a couple seconds, but he never spared that time because he really had more important things to think about.

Now, however, he couldn't take his eyes off the statue. It wasn't because of the statue itself, but because of the person who was standing at its base, staring up at it.

He easily recognized the person standing there from her choice of clothing alone, but there was one article that was missing from her person.

Her trademark bow. The one that never left the top of her head, even when she was sleeping, and made her look like a cat. Without it, she still looked like a cat, but he attributed that to the fact she literally had cat ears poking out from her long black hair.

"B-Blake?" he stuttered out in his shock, immediately cursing himself for that mistake the moment he saw her entire body stiffen.

She turned her head slightly in his direction, giving him the opportunity to see a tiny portion of her face, but what he saw made him freeze when he saw it.

There was something shiny running down her cheek, something he immediately recognized to be a tear.

'_She's crying…'_ he told himself as he stared at her and he probably would've spent the entire night doing just that if the newly-revealed faunus hadn't made a sudden attempt to run away from him.

Driven by his confusion and his want for answers, Kaneki dashed towards her with all of the speed he could muster and closed the distance between them in less than a second.

When she was at the appropriate range, he shot his hand out and latched it around her wrist.

**-Chapter End-**

Ah, yet another cliffhanger. Don't you just love the smell of salt in the air?

Well anyways, I was really debating whether or not I should end this chapter there, but I decided I should because it makes starting the next chapter much easier for me.

*Dodges the chairs that were thrown at me.*

Oh, come on! Don't hate me! I have real trouble with starting new chapters!

*Clears throat.*

So, peace out until next time you guys. You know, if I don't suddenly decide to stop writing for this story again.

*Dodges gun shots.*

Okay, okay, I get it!


	9. Chapter 8: Halves

'Ello guys and welcome to the eighth chapter of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant. We've done this song and dance eight times now, so I won't beat around the bush.

I was being pretty lazy about writing this chapter. Not to say that it affects the quality of the chapter overall, I feel like this chapter is pretty average compared to the others, I was just being lazy about taking the time and writing for this on my phone.

I literally only wrote for this when I had nothing to do. So basically throughout the entirety of my pre-calculus class and when I was at home.

Semester just ended by the way, just barely passed that class after getting a low D second quarter and completely bombing my mid-term.

How did I pass you wonder? I got a solid B first quarter! Yay, the rapid regression of my academic career!

Well, personal problems aside, I actually tried to do something I've never done before and it might be interesting for you guys. I wrote this chapter without ever once going into Kaneki's point of view.

Granted, I only used the point of views of two people who think somewhat similarly to Kaneki, but it's a gradual process for me to work on as a writer because I want to be able to write chapters without Kaneki ever appearing once and branch out the story more. So bare with me while I try to grow as a writer.

So without any further ado, let's get this mother rolling with an even more aggressive mandatory disclaimer, as promised!

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

Oh my god, stop fucking asking me if I own these series. I seriously don't.

**-Chapter 8: Halves-**

Blake didn't expect a lot of things to happen when she ran away from the others. She didn't expect to suddenly find Kaneki standing behind her as she gazed upon the hunter statue in the courtyard, she didn't expect to find his right hand wrapped around her right wrist in less than a second when she tried to run away, and she definitely expect to find his grip on it to be so light.

It was strange really. She felt as though she easily could've broke away from the grip he had on her arm if she tried, but something was stopping her from doing so and running away like she initially planned.

Instead, she tentatively turned to face the young man who was holding her wrist like it was that of a newborn's, all the while wondering how'd he react to the entire situation.

Would he be angry that she hid her faunus nature from him and the others, especially when he himself willingly revealed his own nature to the team after having only known them for less than two days?

She wouldn't blame him if she did. It was horribly unfair that she hide something so inconsequential from him when he was so open with what he was, and comparably speaking, his problems were way worse than her own.

Seriously, what exactly did she have to hide when compared to him? Now that she thought about it, she really was pathetic.

He was a creature that had to eat people to survive while she was just a creature with the abilities of a normal animal, and _she _was the one who was too ashamed to admit what she was to people who were supposed to be her friends.

Sure, people might treat her badly like Velvet and the other faunus at Beacon if they found out about what she actually was, but there were people who would actively try and kill Kaneki if they find out about what he was. They would think of him as a monster while they would think of her as at most a nuisance.

The cat-eared faunus knew that what she had done was unfair to him, so she fully expected to find him sporting a look of betrayal, or maybe even disgust, when she turned to face him. But when her amber eyes actually fell upon him, she was shocked to find that he had tilted his head down so that the majority of his face was covered by his bangs.

"Blake…" the snowy-haired half ghoul began but trailed off, leaving them in uncomfortable silence.

Initially, she was confused as to why he was doing what he was doing, but she cast that confusion off to the side the moment he spoke and she heard the lack of emotion in his voice, which sparked her brain to life so she could come up with a way to explain the entire situation to him.

"Kaneki, I-" she tried to say that she could explain the entire situation to him, but he had cut her off before the words could leave her throat.

"Blake, tell me…" he began once more in a way that made her really think that the grip he had on her wrist was going to skyrocket into much more painful levels at any moment.

She flinched her eyes closed in anticipation of the pain, but those same eyes shot open when she felt the calloused skin of his fingers release their grip on her wrist and begin to slide their way down her arm towards her hand.

She watched in slight trepidation as a few of the five black-tipped appendages lightly grazed the skin on the back of her hand, an action that sent shivers down her spine, before he captured her much smaller hand in his own with a squeeze she could only describe as comforting, causing her heart to skip a beat as a strange but not unpleasant warmth began to run through her body.

"Why were you crying?" she heard him ask in a voice that was dripping with an emotion that was absent from his previous words.

Blake's eyes shot back up to his face to find that it was no longer being hidden behind a veil of snow and was conveying nothing but the same emotion: concern. Concern for her, if she had to guess.

The teenage faunus could feel the same warmth from earlier well up inside her once again when she heard the concern in his voice.

She was ashamed to admit it due to how selfish it was, but there was something about seeing him so worried about her that gave her a strange sense of satisfaction, which was something she found to be unusual in on itself because he had been worried about her in the past and it had never elicited that kind of reaction from her.

'_Then again, I guess having to hear someone you thought of as a friend debase your entire race like they were nothing more than animals will do that to you,'_ she mused internally, knowing that the reaction was probably just a side effect of having just went through an argument that questioned her personal ties and moral values.

That wasn't to say that she didn't like feeling the side effects gave her, though. It was nice to know that there was someone who cared more about what made her cry than what she was, but a lot like the pleasant-feeling side effects drugs had, she didn't want to indulge in it too often.

"I-it's nothing," she tried to assure him, but knew that the attempt would fail the moment she heard herself stutter out her first words.

Kaneki's concern expression quickly shifted to one of skepticism when he heard those words and he countered with a question that made what he felt abundantly clear to her, "Do you really expect me to believe that you, of all people, were crying for absolutely no reason."

"You do have a point," she admitted to herself, knowing that compared to most teenage girls her age, she definitely wasn't the most emotionally expressive person in the world, "but trust me, it isn't something you should concern yourself about."

"Weiss and I…" she began, momentarily trailing off as she scoured her mind for the right words to describe her argument, "... Weiss and I just had a clashing of ideals that got a bit too heated for my liking, is all."

"I'm assuming it was something about you being a faunus, right?" he asked in a gentle tone that she would always hear him use whenever he consoled Ruby after she failed to do something, which was something she couldn't help laughing at.

"I know that I must look like an emotional wreck to you right now, but could you please stop acting like I'm a porcelain doll?" she asked him once her laughter subsided and she removed her hand from his grip, an act that she immediately regretted due to the sudden disappearance of the warmth it once caused.

An amused smile of his own crept into his lips as he sheepishly replied, "Ah, sorry, my bad."

"Caring about someone's emotional state is hardly something to be sorry about, you know," she told him. "And to answer your question, no, it wasn't about me being a faunus, but we did talk about the faunus and she said things that I really couldn't bring myself to agree with."

"Like what things?"

Blake let out a sigh and began to summarize the things Weiss had said to her, "Like how the White Fang is pure evil and how they're nothing more than bloodthirsty psychopaths bent on destroying humanity."

The snowy-haired half ghoul didn't respond to her summary immediately and instead looked at her as if what she had just told him had been in another language.

"Did she tell you a reason as to why she thinks that way?" he asked her after a stint of silence that lasted a good twenty seconds.

She nodded her head in response and then proceeded to explain the heiress's side of the story, "She said that she was a victim, that when she was younger, she would be forced to watch people she knew disappear from her life entirely because of the White Fang, that she's seen board member executed just because of their affiliation with her grandfather's company."

"And while I can agree, that's a terrible way for anyone to grow up," she continued, "I just can't bring myself to accept it as justification for her despising the faunus as a whole."

"I mean, if it wasn't for the businessmen and politicians like her grandfather, who constantly put down the faunus and treat them like they're nothing but a variation of animal," she began to explain her standpoint on the situation, knowing that he would want to know it after hearing the heiress's, "we wouldn't need to resort to violence in the first place."

Her explanation resulted in another bout of silence from the snowy-haired young man and Blake waited patiently for his response, but a part of her already knew that he would try to explain Weiss's point of view to her as she knew it was in his nature to try and act the grey in an argument between two people who should've been friends.

"So tell me, which one of my opinions do you want me to give in this situation, my personal or my logical one?" he asked her, his voice returning to that of the stoic young man she was the most accustomed to and comfortable with.

"Both preferably."

"Well, it's a good thing that both of those opinions are the same then," he stated in a way that made it feel like he was thinking out loud.

He let out an exasperated sigh before giving her his opinion on the matter, "Truth be told, I think the entire discussion about which side is more justified is completely and utterly pointless."

"What makes you think that?" she asked, curious as to what made him dismiss a conflict that had caused the deaths of hundreds so casually.

"Past experience, mostly," he answered vaguely before elaborating almost immediately afterwards. "Back in my world, there were two organizations who would constantly struggle with one another."

"The first being the CCG, a group who was bent on the annihilation of the ghouls," he continued, raising his index finger in conjunction with his words and then raised his middle as he added, "the second being a group of ghouls who called themselves Aogiri Tree and were on the opposite end of that spectrum, wanting to wipe the human race off the face of the planet."

"Eventually, the two reached a point where they couldn't co-exist with one another without doing some major changes," he finished explaining. "You see where I'm going with this, right?"

"Yeah, I think I do," the cat-eared faunus replied with a tentative nod of head. "You're basically saying that you believe that the White Fang and the Schnee Corporation are in the same boat and will naturally fight with one another unless the necessary changes are made, but that doesn't explain why you think why you think it's pointless to argue about which side is more justified in their actions."

"It does when you think about it as justifying the actions of two warring nations," Kaneki replied as he crossed his arms over his chest. "One side fights for self-preservation and the other fights just because they don't like the other country."

"One's clearly more justified than the other, but it doesn't change the fact that people died because they simply couldn't come to an accord of some kind." He uncrossed his arms as he finished, "So that's why I think that trying to justify a group's actions is pointless, it just doesn't do anything other than give reason to senseless death."

"Senseless death that wouldn't have happened if _both _sides were open to talking things out peacefully, which the Schnee Corporation wasn't in this situation," Blake argued at the behest of the people she once thought to be family. "The White Fang tried for years to solve things peacefully, but they just wouldn't listen to anything we had to say them!"

Blake caught her blunder the moment those words left her mouth.

For the second time in the last thirty minutes, she had gotten so caught up in her emotions that she accidentally let it slip that she was once a part of the White Fang, but unlike last time she didn't feel as if she had made the worst mistake of her life. It felt like she revealed something that wasn't really important to her, instead of the one secret she's been trying to keep since she left the organization in the first place.

By the way his one visible eye narrowed slightly, she could tell that Kaneki caught the mistake, but for some reason he decided to make no show that he did.

Instead, his expression contorted back to one of worry and he asked, "Blake, tell me truthfully, do _you _think the White Fang's actions are justified?"

"What, no-" she began to argue once more but he cut her off before she could, or even contemplate why he even asked in the first place.

"Then why are you trying to argue that they are?" he asked and just like that, she realized what he was trying to do.

He was trying to get her to admit to the fact that she was a part of White Fang on her own fruition, that much was obvious, but the question was: why go through the trouble?

She pretty much just gave the answer away a few seconds ago and she knew that there was no way someone as attentive as Kaneki missed her slip up, so there should've been no need for her to tell him anything.

Was he was doing it out of consideration for her? It sounded like something he would do given the circumstances.

Blake couldn't stop herself from smiling at the implications of that statement and decided on what she would answer him with, "It's because there was a time where I was once a part of the White Fang myself."

"It was back before we turned violent, when I was still a little girl," she continued to explain. "All we did back then was stage peaceful protests against the mistreatment of faunus and eventually, after years of close to what seemed like no progress to To most of us, all of that changed."

"There was a change in leadership and then…" she trailed off, averting her eyes down towards the ground as she searched herself for the words that she could use to properly describe the change her former affiliate had gone through, "... and then, we stopped striving for peace and equality, and started striving for annihilation and domination instead."

"So is that why you're here at Beacon and not still fighting with them?" he asked, his tone solemn as he spoke. "Because you felt they lost their way?"

The cat-eared faunus let out a sigh in response to the question as she really wasn't in the mood to answer such a personal question after having just answered one a few moments prior, and she made sure to convey that message to him with what she said next.

"Look…" she trailed off, hoping the tiredness that was in her voice would be enough to get him off that particular subject.

Thankfully, he seemed to catch the meaning hidden beneath what she had said and nodded his head with an understanding expression splayed across his features.

His almost immediate acceptance of her reluctance caused a pang of guilt to run through her, knowing that he really didn't deserve to be spoken to in such a way after having treated the majority of their previous conversation with more tact than she expected any of her other teammates would have.

So, she immediately went to apologize, but as if he could read her thoughts, he cut her off before the words could leave her mouth.

"You don't have to apologize," he stated in a way that made it seem like he was well used to being rejected in such a way. "It's not like you have to answer any of my questions, after all."

"Well…" she began as she blinked her eyes owlishly at the statement, actually being taken off-guard that he wasn't even the least bit annoyed by her reluctance, "... good."

What came next was an awkward silence that felt extremely foreign to her for one main reason. It being that they never really dealt with awkward silences much before in the past.

Usually in situations where awkward silence took over their conversation, they would be able to fall back on talking about their shared interests to fill the silence, but unfortunately talking about a new book she was reading simply wouldn't do this time. Too many personal topics had been dragged out into the light for them to go back to talking about such mundane things.

"Blake, do you mind if I ask you a question?" he asked, his polite tone having an underlying sense of caution to it as he spoke.

The cat-eared bookworm crossed her arms over her chest and answered with, "That really depends on the question you're planning on asking me."

"Oh, I was just wondering about what you were planning on doing next," he stated, averting his eyes off to the side as he spoke. "You were going to run away from me when you noticed me, so I couldn't stop myself from wondering about what you were planning to do."

She opened her mouth to respond, but closed it almost immediately afterwards when she realized that she herself really didn't know what her plan was if she actually managed to get away from him earlier.

For a moment, while she was staring at the statue, she entertained the idea of leaving Beacon for a couple of days to go and investigate the dust shop robberies that were supposedly done by the White Fang.

'_The way I was acting earlier, I wouldn't be too surprised if I had actually tried to go through with that plan,'_ she lamented to herself mentally, after having shook her head self-beratingly at how she had almost let her emotions cloud her judgement. '_I suppose it was a good thing that Kaneki came along when he did; otherwise, I might've ended up doing something I'd regret in the long run.'_

If she had left, there was no doubt in her mind that she would've been gone for a much longer time than just 'a couple of days' as she doubted that an untrained hunter-in-training like herself would be able to find the motive behind a chain of robberies very easily, especially when the police couldn't do so themselves.

"Don't worry, you know me well enough by now to know that I'm not stupid enough to go and do something rash," Blake assured him. "At most, I would've just spent a couple days out in town to look into something that's been bugging me."

"Do you mind telling me what it was?" he asked the very question she expected him to ask, though he asked it with a lot more concern lacing it than she first expected.

She couldn't help but smile at the concern he was showing for her. Selfish as it may be, she couldn't stop herself from enjoying the fact that someone would show her that amount of concern.

"It wasn't anything too big..." she answered him with the intention of leaving it at that, but she felt the strange urge to confide in him further when she finished speaking, making her feel as if there was something inside her that was pushing her to do so. And so, she allowed herself to be taken in by impulse one more time and confided in him once more, "Have you heard about the robberies that've been taking place the past couple of months?"

The snowy-haired young chin cupped his chin with his left hand and replied, "Yeah, I think Ruby said she broke one up before, right?"

She nodded and explained what she wanted to do, "I want to go look into them, I heard a couple of detectives say that they could be connected to the White Fang somehow, and I wanted to see if their claims have any substance behind them."

He blinked owlishly in response to her answer and then adopted a determined gaze before asking a question that completely floored her.

"You mind if I lent you a hand with that?"

* * *

Neo turned her head up towards the sky and wistfully gazed upon the few sparkles of light that managed to pierce through the atmosphere and shine like translucent dust crystals in the milky darkness above. She kept her eyes upon the lights for a solid six seconds before she shifted her eyes towards the patch of dead grass next to her and sighed.

'_Why do I keep coming back here?'_ she ran one of her gloved hands through her hair as she asked herself that question mentally, despite already knowing full well why she kept coming back.

This was the spot Haise had shown her all those years ago after one of their earliest jobs together, and the spot they would routinely meet with one another after every job for years afterward.

Apparently, he found it one day while he was out trying to find a quiet place to read away from the compound.

The spot was nothing more than a clearing in the trees and yet, it held more significance to her than even her childhood home. It was farthest thing from large, it really wasn't any larger than your standard waiting room in terms of size and it didn't contain anything that could even be considered close to spectacular, but she didn't keep coming back to it because of its size and grandeur.

No, what kept her coming the spot was the fact it reminded her so much of the boy who had found it. It was an uncompromising peace in the chaotic maelstrom that was her life that she had taken for granted almost the entire time she was aware of it.

The immeasurably large amount of guilt that had been building up steadily inside of her made itself known once more when she thought that and she clenched her hands into tight fists as a result.

She loathed that naive fool she had known since her days in that godforsaken orphanage. No, she believed him to be nothing more than a liability that dragged her down at every step of the way. One that she would've thrown away a long time ago if it wasn't for that promise she made him all those years ago.

Why did she go out of her way and save that weak little boy she hadn't even spoken more than seven words to all those years ago? Why did she promise to never leave his side if she disliked him so much? Why did his absence in her life make her feel as though someone had gouged out a hole in her stomach? Why did seeing him changed so much personality-wise because of her own actions make her feel as though she had committed one of the worst atrocities in human history?

There was no reason as to why she should be asking any of those questions or feeling any of those things about someone as insignificant as him. She's had to carry him on her back for a majority of their lives up until that point and he was the one who decided he wanted to cut ties with her. It wasn't her fault that it had to be taken in a much more literal sense than he would've liked or anticipated, she knew that and yet, despite all of that, she kept finding herself asking a single question.

'_Why...?'_ Neo began to ask herself once more as she rested her back against the cool concrete of a nearby building and slid down the length of its surface. '_Why do I even care about that stupid promise anyways?'_

* * *

'_I can't believe I'm doing this,' _Blake thought to herself disbelievingly, crossing her arms over her chest for what felt like the thousandth time as she patiently watched Kaneki unlock the door to their room.

She had never been one to be easily talked into doing stupid things in the past, so how she let herself get talked into sharing a motel room with the one young man who had openly confessed to having eaten other people before in the past was beyond her. Well, that actually wasn't true, she knew exactly how that happened.

She didn't think that she would be able to finish the investigation very quickly on her own and so when he offered his help, she jumped on his offer without thinking about the consequences too throughly. One of those consequences being that they share a room since the only money they had to spend was the money they had in their pockets at the time, which wouldn't have been a problem if she hadn't forgotten both her scroll and wallet on her bed at the dorm.

Kaneki, on the other hand, brought his scroll and was able to look up the fares at some of the nicer motels, and found that he had enough money to rent a single room at one of them for a couple nights, which naturally meant that they share a room.

At first, she didn't seem much problem with it, but that was when they got to the motel where he asked if there was more than one bed in the room, and were promptly told by the tired night manager that the rooms only had one bed. He offered that that they go and see if one of the cheaper motels had more beds per room, but at that point she was so tired that it really didn't matter to her.

Now, that they were standing in front of the room, she was beginning to feel slightly apprehensive about the prospect of having to share a bed with the snowy-haired young man. It wasn't that she had a problem with the thought of sharing a bed with him since out of all of the men in the world, he was one of the two she'd actually be comfortable sharing a bed with for any reason.

'_Grow up, it's not like anything's going to happen,' _she berated herself internally. '_Knowing Kaneki, he's probably going to offer to sleep on the floor the moment we step foot inside.'_

The bow-bearing bookworm was snapped out of her momentary reverie by the sound of the motel door unlocking and when she returned herself to reality, she was met with the sight of it swinging open.

"You sure you don't want to see if any of the other motels have a room with more than one bed?" the young man she was thinking about asked her once more as he turned his head to face her.

She let out a tired sigh and replied with, "Didn't I already tell you already that it's fine?"

To further illustrate how "fine" she was with the idea, she stepped past him and into the room where her nostrils were immediately assaulted by the smell of cheap chemical cleaning products.

Her nose instinctively crinkled in response to the sudden invasion of its privacy, but she didn't pay much more mind to it after that. That was until she heard the young man behind her stifle what sounded like a laugh.

She looked over her shoulder towards said young man and found that he had an amused curl to his chapped lips.

"Something funny?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow.

He used his left index finger to scratch his chin and replied with an unconvincing, "No, don't worry about it."

"Right…" she trailed off before walking further into the room, deciding that it was probably best to leave the topic alone.

Her amber eyes scanned the room that they had been provided with and she found that it looked very basic. The living-area portion of the room only contained a full-sized bed, a two-door closet with brown window shutter-like doors and a flat-screen TV that one would see in most hotel/motel rooms nowadays.

She stepped over into the bathroom and found that it too was very basic-looking. White ceramic sink, similarly-made toilet, and a half-shower/half-bath that was lined with white tile.

Overall, the room could be described with seven words: clean and easy to take care of.

'_Now I can see why this room was so cheap,' _she thought to herself. '_There's barely anything to it.'_

"So which side of the bed do you want?" Blake asked as she walked over to the bed and pressed down on its surface to test its firmness.

When she received no answer from Kaneki for a solid six seconds, she turned her head towards him and found that he was staring at her with a widened grey eyes.

"Um, I…" he began as he started to scratch the back of his head sheepishly, "... I sort of thought that I was going to be sleeping on the floor."

Confused, she raised an eyebrow at him as if to say, "What made you think that?"

"Well, I'm a man and you're a woman…" he trailed off in a way that made it clear he was implying something.

Not quite understanding what exactly he was trying to imply, she replied with, " Yeah, and that's a bed and this is a room. There, now we both just stated the obvious."

The snowy-haired half ghoul adverted his eyes and sheepishly explained what he had meant with a question, "Aren't you worried about something happening when you're sleeping?"

"That depends," she answered. "Are you planning on doing something to me while I'm sleeping?"

"What- no, of course not!"

"Then, looks like I don't have anything to worry about it," she replied, an amused smile of her own creeping onto her lips at the sight of the usually calm half-ghoul looking so befuddled.

She really didn't know why he had so much of a problem with it. Yeah, she was a tad bit nervous about the situation a couple minutes ago, but even she could see how trivial the entire thing was and she was the one who was in danger.

They would only be sleeping in the same bed and she trusted Kaneki enough to know he wouldn't do anything.

"Are you sure?" he asked once more, causing a spike of irritation to course through her. "I mean, I wouldn't mind and I've slept worse places, so-"

"Kaneki, I'm sure," she replied, a little bit of her irritation leaking into her voice, "and besides, you do know that telling me you've slept worse places isn't helping convince me at all, right?"

"It's like taking half of the amount of money that someone offered you originally and then saying it's alright because there were times where you had none at all, and that you're grateful to have any at all," she continued to explain. "It really only makes the person want to give you money even more, you get what I mean?"

Kaneki gave an uncertain nod in response to her explanation and left the topic alone, a decision she believed to be a good one on his part.

Not wanting to sleep in and wrinkle her street clothes, she stepped into the aforementioned bathroom and was about to lock the door behind her before realizing something that made her stop dead in her tracks.

She didn't have any pajamas to change into...

'_Maybe the motel provides robes…'_ she thought to herself as she walked out of the bathroom to see if the closet did indeed contain a robe like she hoped.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, Blake was immediately faced with a sight she knew she had already seen once before, but was forced to stop and take stock of when she saw it again, for a reason that was completely beyond her.

To make a long story short; Kaneki was wearing a black vest, a white button-up, a pair of black dress pants, and a pair of matching dress shoes when he entered the room. He was no longer wearing any of those, instead opting to trade all of them in for a pair of jet-black boxers she's seen before too.

Maybe it was the fact that they were significantly closer to one another relationship-wise than they were when she last saw him standing completely without dress, or maybe it was just her hormones being hormones after having just finished reading _Ninjas of Love_ the other day, but she couldn't stop herself from enjoying the sight that was presented with her slightly more than she did before. That wasn't to say that she didn't enjoy seeing him half-naked the first time wasn't enjoyable for her, but in that instance, her enjoyment stemmed from amusement at how misplaced all those muscles seemed to be on an otherwise scrawny-looking, baby-faced teenager than anything else really.

"Why aren't you wearing any clothes?" she found herself asking him after having taken in the sight for a couple seconds more.

He blinked at her owlishly before shrugging at her question unabashedly and replying with, "I didn't have anything to wear to bed and I didn't want to wrinkle my only other clothes so, this was sort of my only option in terms of bed apparel. Why, does it bother you?"

That was a really good question. Did Kaneki's state of undress bother her?

…

"No, of course not," she told him firmly so that there was no way he could possibly try to argue against it. "I was just curious as to what the reasoning was."

Deciding that it was probably best to do the same and change into something she can sleep in as well, she went through with her earlier plan and checked the closet for a robe just to find nothing but than empty space inside it.

'_Of course there isn't a robe in here,'_ she thought to herself , sighing tiredly as she wracked her brain for a plan B. '_I could just sleep in the clothes I have on now and wash them in the morning.'_

'_No,' _she shook her head, '_that still means I would have to be undressed in front of Kaneki at some point, the only difference would be that he'd be awake instead and truth be told, I'd rather sleep next to him in my underwear than be subjected to that.'_

"Hey Blake," she heard the young man call out to her from behind her, prompting her to turn around and find him standing directly in front of her with his button-up hanging limply from in between his fingers. "I'm just going to go out on a limb here and guess you're looking for something to sleep in, right?"

The sudden urge to advert her eyes down towards the side filled her and compelled her to do so as she gave him an affirmative nod in response.

She heard him let out an amused snort from his nostrils before holding the button-up towards her, which had been neatly folded into a square, and said, "Here."

The faunus in hiding blinked at the offered article of clothing several times before she finally realized that he was offering her his shirt to wear for the night.

"Are you sure?" she asked him. "You literally just said that you didn't want to wrinkle your clothes."

"Yeah," he nodded with a finality that made it hard to argue, not enough that it would actually stop her from doing so, but enough to question if she really wanted to or not, "I can always just wash it in the morning, so I really don't mind."

"Ah, ok," she replied as she tentatively took the offered piece of clothing from him, her fingers grazing his as she did so, and stared at it while also contemplating whether or not she actually wanted to put it on.

'_Well, it's certainly long enough for me preserve some of my modesty, but he's probably worn it for the entire day already…' _she thought to herself as she took a sniff and used her superior faunus senses to confirm her suspicions without having to put the shirt up to her nose.

'_Weird, it still smells faintly fresh, almost as if he's already washed it,' _she thought to herself. '_It definitely wasn't recently though…' _She took another drag from afar as she continued to think, '_... maybe a couple of hours beforehand, but definitely not recently given the fact that I can still smell him beneath the chemical detergent.'_ Blake glanced up at the snowy-haired teen and wondered, '_I understand that he's probably worn this shirt for most of the day now, but why would he have needed to wash his shirt before now?'_

After contemplating the topic for several seconds, she shrugged her shoulders and decided that it was probably best not to ask. There were plenty of better times to ask that question and besides, she didn't want to ask the question without having a real reason behind doing so.

The exhaustion that had built up over the day suddenly overcame her like a tidal wave and her body screamed at her to go to sleep, and so she moved back towards the bathroom to change into the shirt Kaneki had given her.

* * *

Neo strode through the entrance of the compound with her usual condescending smirk spread across her lips. It looked uncompromising to anyone who looked her way, but she knew that it was nothing more than a frail mask to hide the mess of feelings that was storming around inside her. One that she knew could be easily peered through by anyone who knew her very well, which could really only said by one person and he wasn't anywhere near her at the moment.

"There you are," she heard a voice she recognized to belong to her latest partner in crime, "A little bit longer and I would've started sending out the search parties."

She let out a scoff as she turned to face the owner of the voice and shot back a counter in her usual mocking tone, "Please, you and I both know that a search party would never be able to find me if I really wanted to get away."

"Well, I suppose you're right about that," the man replied with a nod as she idly noted that he was missing a signature piece of his usual outfit, revealing his bright orange hair to the world. "So what exactly were you doing out there at such an hour anyway, Doll? Thinking about an unrequited love or something?"

"As if," the multi-colored haired woman scoffed once more at the notion, this time with much more indignance to her voice, "I'm not the type of person who fails to get what she wants, you know that Roman."

"Really now?" he asked her as he flashed her his usual cocky smile. "The last time I checked there was one puny, little bug that managed to escape that web of yours."

A powerful pang of irritation shot through her as she began clench her hands into tight fists.

Flashing the orange-haired man a rare glare, Neo retorted, "What do you want Roman, or did you come here to try out mocking me again?"

"Strike a nerve there, did I?" he asked with a tone that infuriated her further. "Well, while I do love proving that I'm better at wordplay than you, I do actually have to tell you something."

"What is it then?" she answered brusquely. "I have better things to do than listen to the crap that comes out of your mouth all the day."

"Wow, I need to remember to use that brat against you more often, it gets you more riled up than even I expected," Roman stated offhandedly, the cocky smile on his face growing even larger than before while her irritation did the same. "Well, banter aside, I do have something I need to tell you."

"Spit it out then," she told him harshly, very ready to be done with the conversation.

"Very well," he relented, but his voice sounded a bit begrudging to her, "The boss wants you to do something for her tomorrow in the city..."

* * *

Blake fidgeted nervously as she stood in front of the bed the full-sized bed where she would lay her head for the night. The bed where Kaneki now lay on his side with his muscular back to her, which was just barely hidden by the blanket that he draped over himself.

Earlier, she said that she would be able to sleep in the bed next to him with no problem, but now that she actually had to do so, she couldn't stop herself from feeling extremely nervous.

'_Why am I acting so nervous?' _she asked herself harshly in her frustration. '_I mean, I've literally laid on top of him before and I still haven't ever felt this nervous.'_

In retrospect, however; the answer to her question was glaringly obvious. She was about to get in the same bed with a shirtless young man who isn't her partner while she wore nothing but her underwear and said young man's shirt, which just barely fit around her due to two very obvious reasons.

Probably feeling her gaze on his back, the snowy-haired teen suddenly turned himself onto his other side, still completely enraptured in his slumber. Her amber eyes immediately shifted towards his face when he did that and she found a sight that made her earlier nervousness fade away from her almost completely.

His face didn't harbor a single ounce of his usual expressions, which always gave him the feel of someone double his age despite his rather baby faced features. Not even the occasional moment where he would act like an awkward teenager who was trying to ask his crush out on a date while having no prior experience doing so could be called similar.

No, she could only compare the expression that he was currently displaying to that of a sleeping child who was having a pleasant dream.

The small innocent smile that was currently on his lips, when coupled with the sight of him lightly nuzzling his cheek into the pillow it laid on was a sight that she couldn't stop herself from being comforted by. The fact that his faint scent was lingering around her due to her wearing his shirt probably didn't help that fact either.

Tentatively, as to not wake the sleeping teen, she lifted the blanket that was draped over him, slipped underneath it and allowed her body to sink into the clutches of the mattress under her.

Giving into her desire to see that innocent smile of his, Blake turned so that she was facing the young man lying next to her and stared at him as a warm feeling began to course through her.

'_You don't ever stop getting more complicated, do you?'_ she asked the sleeping young man mentally. '_To think that in less than a month, I've seen you cry like a hardened old man and smile like a five year old.'_

The fact that he could so easily switch between such conflicting appearances was something that managed to both frustrate her and intrigue her at the same time, further increasing her want to find out more things about him.

As her earlier exhaustion continued to enclose on her and caused her eyes to begin to droop close, she found herself smiling.

* * *

Neopolitan sighed as she walked into her bedroom before channeling all of her earlier frustration and slammed the wooden door shut behind her. Her feet dragged her body to the rather plain-looking bed in the corner of the room and she buried her head into the sole pillow.

She laid there as she waited for her earlier anger to subside and when it did, she rolled herself onto her back and focused all of her attention onto the stone gray ceiling above her, silently wondering to herself, '_It's happening again, isn't it?'_

Ever since she was just a young girl, Neo had always been confident in her ability to keep her emotions in check. There was absolutely nobody in the world who could keep themselves as emotionally stable as she could and that was the way she preferred it, but for the first time in long time, she felt as though her oh so coveted composure was slipping through her fingers.

The last time she lost it in such a way was when she found out about Haise's intentions to leave her and the group, so it really didn't surprise her to find that it had started slipping once again when she found out that he survived her betrayal.

If his sudden reappearance with a group of young hunters-in-training wasn't enough, his personality and appearance had almost changed beyond the point of recognition.

It was clear to her from the first time she laid eyes on him again that he was no longer that sweet and innocent doe-eyed youth that she had grown so unknowingly fond of over the years, despite how much his absolutely unwavering belief in his stupid mother's saying annoyed her at times.

His hair was snow-white and his gray eyes were hardened to the point. He no longer acted like an awkward little boy when she was near him, now he looked at her like she was nothing more than a nuisance to him.

The change was so obvious that she would've needed to be both blind and deaf to not notice. He was finally acting like the person she always wanted him to be, someone who didn't need her to protect him all the time. Seeing that growth in him should've made her happy, at least a tiny bit, but she just couldn't stop herself from feeling like she got the consolation prize in the exchange and was simultaneously being taunted by the person who won the grand prize.

The girl with three different hair colors reached her hand up towards the ceiling and clenched it into a tightly clenched fist, her mind placing the image of the new-and-improved Haise back to the forefront of her mind as she did so.

"I hate you so much…" she grumbled that to herself before lowering her arm back down to its original position at her side and turning her body so that she was lying on her side, "... Haise."

She never did like getting consolation prizes...

* * *

Blake's eyebrows twitched when she felt a faint warmth caress the back of her hand lightly.

'_What…'_ she began as her still sleep addled brain attempted to turn itself back on in response to the sudden stimulation, '_... what was that?'_

When her brain reached the halfway point of its reboot, she realized that whatever was touching her was actually physical and not just the warmth of the sun coming in through the single crack in the blinds.

The faunus in hiding forced her eyelids open and found herself staring at a sight that she's probably become too comfortable with over the past couple of days: Kaneki's face. The memories of last night returned to her as her mind reached the final stages of its attempted reboot, and the same smile from last night returned to her as well.

Remembering that there was something touching her hand, she turned her gaze down towards said appendage and found that it had somehow caught itself in between the mattress and Kaneki's own hand. A slight warmth grew on her cheeks in response to the sight.

Every rational part of her wanted to move her hand out from underneath his hand, but every other… less rational part of her wanted to prolong the amount of time their hands were in contact with one another for as long as humanly possible, something she heavily attributed to the fact that the strange warmth from last night had returned to her.

The two sides of her fought with one another on how to proceed. Normally, she would've allowed her rational side prevail and moved her hand, but given how many times she's allowed her emotions to dictate her actions over the past couple of days, she felt that she could do so again, one more time.

It took her six seconds to decide that it was best to compromise and just keep her hand underneath hi-

"Blake?" she heard an all too familiar voice call out to her from outside the haze of her daze. "Is there something wrong?"

The hidden cat-eared Faunus blinked out of her stupor and found a pair of dull grey orbs staring back into her own amber ones with the telltale signs of concern weaved inside them.

Having been caught completely off-guard by the sudden question, a spike of panic seized her and forced her to rip her hand out from underneath his as even more warmth pooled into her cheeks.

It didn't take long for the young man with snow-white hair to understand what just happened and he blushed as he blurted out one of his usual sheepish apologies, "Oh, uh, sorry about that. I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's fine," she reassured him, sitting herself up on the bed as she did so, knowing that lying next to each other with their faces mere inches apart was probably not the most appropriate position to have any sort of conversation in.

Not having the stomach to face him after what just happened, she adverted her eyes off towards the left, catching a quick glimpse of the blush that Kaneki was sporting, a sight that gave her a strangely high amount of satisfaction from seeing.

An awkward silence enveloped the two of them as the cat-eared Faunus struggled to find the correct words to start any form of conversation after what just transpired. She would've liked to say that she was bigger than being embarrassed about such a small thing, but she doubted that anyone her age could be able to approach the situation without feeling a tiny bit flustered. Well, there was Yang, but as of this moment, she was the very definition of the term: "outlier".

"Um, did you want to take the shower first?" The question left his mouth in a rather awkward fashion and given the context of the situation, that was pretty much on par with what she expected from him, if anything at all.

"Y-yeah," she answered as she nodded her head in agreement to his suggestion.

In terms of how things should proceed, that was probably the best route they could go down given how awkward things had become between them. She needed some time alone to collect herself and he clearly needed the same, so she decided that it was probably in both their best interests to go along with his suggestions.

Blake swung her legs off the side of the bed and stood up to make her way to the bathroom, only stopping when she heard her teammate call out to her.

"H-hey Blake," he stuttered out, curious about what he could've possibly wanted, she turned to see what the white-haired half ghoul wanted.

She raised an eyebrow at the young man to signify her confusion right before she asked in an smooth tone that surprised even her, "What is it?"

"M-my shirt…" he began nervously as he started to scratch the back of his head, "... I kind of need to wash it."

"O-oh yeah, sorry, I'll be sure to leave it outside the bathroom before I step into the shower." She adverted her eyes off to the side once more as she spoke, still not having the will to stomach to look him in the eyes.

"Alright."

If he did do anything after saying that, Blake wouldn't have seen it because she had turned around and speed-walking towards the bathroom before she could gauge his reaction.

* * *

An annoyed huff came from Neo as she walked down the sparsely populated streets Vale.

'_I know that it's not exactly rush hour, but one would think there'd be more pedestrian traffic on the streets of the kingdom's capital city,' _she thought to herself idly as she glanced around the near empty streets once more. '_It's a good thing I decided to disguise myself before I left the base, or I might've ended up getting recognized out in the open like this.'_

With her objective placed firmly at the forefront of her mind, she kept walking down the path that she knew would eventually lead her to it with the same confident-ridden strut that she always walked with, despite how anxious the lack of cover that was currently around her made her.

As she walked, an unimpressive motel came into view and caught her attention for some reason. It wasn't anything special from what she could see, but there was something about it that was drawing her in for some reason that she wasn't about to the waste time trying to figure out. She had a mission to do and she had better things to do than invest-

Right as she turned to leave, an all too familiar figure with hair as white as snow stepped out of the motel before turning around and holding the door open as if someone was coming out right behind him.

Hair as white as snow that seemingly shined in the light of the sun. Check.

Fingernails that were painted a contrasting dull black. Check.

Medical eyepatch that seemingly covered up a perfectly good left eye, but instead hid a color combination that was eerily similar to those of a Grimm. Check.

There was no doubt in her mind, that was the new visage of her older partner.

'_Haise…?'_ she asked herself, her feet that were once filled with drive and purpose, slowed to a halt due to the one person that's been taking both of those things out of said appendages quite a lot lately.

She stared dumbfounded at her former partner as he held the door open, her gaze remaining steady on him up until the point a familiar-looking girl with long black hair that was topped off with a similarly-colored bow stepped out of the building and gave him a brief nod of appreciation.

'_Wait, now I remember, that's the girl I talked to over the scroll back during the raid on the settlement,'_ she noted to herself as she watched the two of them exchange words that she wasn't able to hear from the where she was standing. '_Aren't they hunters in training, what are they doing coming out of a motel…?'_

Neo didn't get much time to contemplate an answer to that question because the pair began walking away in the other direction before she could come up with one.

'_Should I…?'_ she began to ask herself, but herfeet had already started moving after them before she finished thinking that.

* * *

"A cafe?" Blake asked, blinking at the sign of the coffee shop before turning her head to meet the gaze onto the snowy-haired young man standing besides her. "Kaneki, why are we at a cafe?"

"Wanted a cup of coffee," Kaneki replied with a shrug before he stepped forwards and pulled the door open, holding it open for her like he did at the motel, "Come on, they just brewed a new pot of coffee."

She quirked an eyebrow at the statement as she subconsciously blurted out a question in response, "How can you even tell something like that?"

"You could say I have a 'sense' for these kinds of things," he flashed an amused smirk at her as he answered, tapping his nose twice for added effect.

A sigh escaped from her lips and she shook her head disbelievingly, hoping that doing so would hide the smile that had grew on her face in response to his rather hilariously bad attempt at trying to make her laugh.

"Ah, irony at its finest," she muttered to no one in particular right before she stepped past him and into the cafe beyond. "Come on, I want to start planning our next move as soon as possible."

The half-ghoul gave a quick nod and followed her inside. The pair then proceeded to walk over to one of the few open booths and sat down directly across from each other.

After that, it didn't take long for a waiter to come over to them and take their order. Kaneki got a simple cup of dark roast coffee and she ordered a mocha, after a couple seconds of deliberation.

"A mocha, huh?" she heard the young man sitting across from her mutter under his breath, "Well, now that I think about it, I guess it makes sense."

"Pardon?" Blake asked, curious as to what he was talking about.

"A-ah, nothing," he adverted his gaze away from her as he continued speaking, "I was just thinking that it makes sense that you'd like something like a mocha."

"What makes you think that? Is it that 'sense' of yours acting up again?"

"No, not really. Have you ever heard someone use the expression: 'you can tell a lot about a person by the way they take their coffee'?"

Blake was fairly sure that she knew where he was going with the question, but she felt as though this was the perfect opportunity to question him about his past like she planned the day prior, and so she decided to play along and act oblivious instead, "No, not really. Then again, I suppose if you think about it, you could technically say that I've heard it now."

"You know for someone who's so great at being stealthy and going unnoticed by others, you're a terrible actor," the eyepatch-wearing half ghoul stated, his tone a little bit too matter-of-fact for her tastes, but she let it slide anyways. "What, did you really think I'd believe that you of all people has never seen or heard that phrase used at least once?"

"Well, unlikely as that scenario may be, you have to admit that there's a possibility I may be telling you the truth," she countered his claim with one of her own smoothly.

"You're right," he admitted with very little trouble as he propped his elbow up on the table that separated them and rested the side of his head in palm of the hand connected to said appendage, which she naturally took as a sign that he was preparing a counter-argument of his own, "but as you said earlier, the chances of that actually being the case is very unlikely." A smile then suddenly appeared on his lips as he added, "And besides, you ordered that mocha with very little hesitation, so you've had to have ordered it some time before and that only makes my claim more plausible."

"Touché," she began her own rebuttal, a smile of her own forming on her lips, "still doesn't mean you're right, but it was a pretty good argument nonetheless."

The eyepatch-wearing half ghoul let out a snort that sounded one part annoyed, one part amused as he replied, "Fine then, I guess it really wasn't all that interesting in the first place."

"Stooping to reverse psychology now, are we? I don't know what to be more disappointed in, the fact you can't come up with another way of getting me to shut and listen, or the fact you actually thought it would work on me."

He flashed her an amused smile and she flashed him one of her own.

The snowy-haired young man opened his mouth, but he was interrupted when the waiter appeared seemingly from out of nowhere and placed their respective orders out on the table in front of them.

They both offered their thanks to the waiter and when they turned their attention back onto one another, the bow-bearing bookworm found that the momentum of their conversation had died almost completely, leaving them to sit across from one another in complete silence.

It wasn't an awkward silence, however. It actually reminded her of the bouts of silence they would have with one another in the early days of their friendship. Silences that, she noticed, became more and more rare between them as the days passed by.

'_I wonder why that is…'_ Blake idly mused to herself as she picked her mug up from the table and took a sip of the still steaming liquid, which burned her tongue the moment the two made contact and caused her to jump a little in shock, prompting an amused snicker to come from the half ghoul sitting across from her.

* * *

Neo stared at the pair she had been following for the past half hour and clenched her hands into fists that were so tight that she was sure her hands would've been bleeding if she wasn't wearing her gloves.

Haise looked so happy, so happy that it sickened her and hurt her at the same time. She hadn't seen him so genuinely happy in a long time. Sure, during the early days of their partnership he smiled at her quite often and they almost always seemed to be quite genuine, but after a while that happiness gave way to an underlying sadness that ruined any positive emotion behind the smiles.

She knew that she probably should've been glad to see him so happy with someone other than her since it meant that he no longer had any reason to bother her, but it still hurt to see that smile being directed at someone else. It was a preposterous thing for her to say, but she felt as though she just had her favorite childhood toy stolen away from her, which incidentally was something that had happened to her in the past.

Neo remembered it like it was yesterday. Some brat took a doll her mother had given her while she was taking a nap.

To get it back, she didn't go and tell her parents, and she didn't go and beat the little brat up. No, instead she waited for the girl to fall asleep one day and took the doll away from her, and just to make sure she learned her lesson, she replaced it with a dirty, hole-ridden pillowcase filled with manure and a sole water balloon.

The result ended up creating quite the mess when she rolled over to hug the pillow case tightly. The point of the story was that when someone stole something of hers, she didn't just get it back, she made sure to get even too.

'_The same tactic should apply here…'_ A wicked smile spread across her as she continued, '_... right?'_

* * *

"So what do you think we should do about the investigation?" Blake asked the half ghoul sitting across from her as she idly swished the remnants of her now cooled coffee in her cup. "Last night, you said that you knew something that might lead to something," she subconsciously tilted her head in a cat-like fashion as she continued, "so what exactly did you want to tell me?"

"Well, it's actually quite simple," he answered as he rested his chin on his hand and turned his head so that he was staring out the window. "Yesterday, I was sitting here in this very cafe and I happened to overhear two people talking about an incoming shipment of dust by the Schnee Corporation." He turned his eyes back onto her and added, "So if the White Fang are really connected with the dust shop robberies then something like that would be one of the most logical progressions, right?"

"Yeah, I suppose that would be true, but I still don't know what exactly they would gain by going after such a large amount of dust," she explained. "The only people who would need that much dust is an army and the last time I checked the White Fang never needed that much dust."

"Well, that doesn't mean that they don't need that much dust now," he countered in his usual stone cold fashion, "and the only way to find out would be to go and see if they try something on the shipment."

"Yeah, that seems like the most logical next step," the bow-bearing bookworm replied as she stood up from the booth. "So when does the shipment come in exactly?"

"Don't know, but from the way the two I heard were talking, I don't think it's coming in today," he answered as he stood from the booth and paid the bill for the drinks. She normally would've felt guilty about having him pay for everything, but she had more important things to worry about at the moment. "So before we commit ourselves to a single plan, I suggest we go and see if a contact of mine has any information on this."

"'Contact'?" she parroted with a raised eyebrow. "Since when do you have contacts?"

"Since yesterday," he answered promptly, which only made her more confused.

"Wait, exactly how long were gone yesterday?"

"Ten or so hours. Took me the majority of that time to establish said contact though."

"Okay then…" Blake trailed off, feeling as though she should be asking more questions, but decided to save it for a later time and more appropriate setting than the inside of a coffee shop, "... so who exactly is this contact of yours?"

Kaneki smiled a smile that sent a shiver down her spine, cracked his index finger and stated, "Oh, his name is Junior…"

**-Chapter End-**

Well, that's another chapter ending with a cliffhanger ending… I bet you're all really starting to hate me now.

So how was it? Good, more good, or even more good?

So you all know the drill, expect the next chapter sometime in March and until then, peace out y'all!

P.S: I'm moving this chapter behind the poem after three weeks.


	10. Chapter 9: Emergence

Ello, guys and welcome to the tenth chapter of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant. So I'm rather proud of this chapter, not because I myself put a lot of work into this chapter - my total work on it was about minimum.

No, I'm proud of this chapter because it's the first collaboration work between me and my beta-reader, FineChyna, and she did absolutely wonderful with it in my opinion! Give her all of your love because this story feels a lot more professional because of her!

Well, I suppose I should get to the story. Recently, I've been told by one of my IRL friends, who reads this story, that my author's notes are "are long as shit". But before I get to the actual story, I need to tell you that this story is going to be branching off into a new site! A forum to be exact. The Spacebattles forum to be even more exact.

So, you're probably asking yourself, why is he doing this? Aren't you fine with just the fans you have here? Well, yeah, of course I am. I love the fact that hundreds of people bothered to press a button for something I did.

Here's the thing though, I could always have more fans and more of an ability to communicate with said fans, and putting this story on a forum helps that substantially. It lets you share your ideas and I get to tell you what I think about them without having to go through this site's PM.

Well, anyways, if you want to check it out, then go to **spacebattles** and look up **Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant**, created by **With Death Comes Death**. That's my username on the site by the way… They wouldn't let me have the "more" in my username.

So, now that's done, let's start this mother up... ! Y'know, after this super aggressive disclaimer, as promised.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

Wow, you're still not getting the message? I don't fucking own these series!

**-Chapter 9: Emergence-**

"So, what exactly are we doing up here again?" Blake asked Kaneki. The two of them were currently situated at the top of a roof, with the snowy-haired young man poised at the very edge.

Said young man, instead of answering, turned to face her and waved his hand, gesturing for her to come to the edge of the roof. Blake did as he directed and strode over to where he stood, glancing down to see what looked like a rather large night club. A rather large night club patrolled by men wearing the same sort of suits that the men who had taken over the settlement wore.

Blake crossed her arms over her chest. "Is this where we meet this contact of yours?" she asked.

"Yeah," Kaneki answered, nodding his head slightly. He suddenly reached down into his shirt and pulled a familiar piece of black leather from its confines.

"You're going to go in there wearing your mask?" Blake questioned, watching as he hooked said mask around his neck.

Kaneki nodded once more as he put on the lower portion of his mask, imposing its toothy grin over his own face. "It's not exactly a place where you want your face seen," he answered. He reached up and slipped off the usual medical eyepatch the covered his left eye. Once it was off, he wrapped the eyepatch portion of his mask over the opposite eye, adding, "It's also not a place where you want your name being heard, so I advise you to not use either of our names while we're in there."

"Yeah, yeah, this isn't my first time doing something like this," she said dismissively, waving off his warnings like she'd heard them dozens of times before. "So, are you planning on going in alone or something?" She turned to face him and added, "Because, as you probably already know, I don't carry a mask on me at all times."

"Here," he said, pulling something bone-white from his shirt and holding it out towards her. Cupping his chin, he explained, "I got this from one of the members of Junior's gang." She took the mask from him almost immediately, studying it as he continued. "I was planning on using it as a spare mask if I ever lost my normal one, but I think it fits you better than it does me."

True to his words, the mask did fit her, but it was in the annoying sort of way. The sort of way that involved a pun.

On the surface, it looked like one of the Grimm bone masks the members of the White Fang wore; and from what Blake could tell, it was made in a similar fashion. However, there were a few select differences that were actually quite noticeable. The first being the fact that it was obviously made to cover the entire face, instead of just the top half. The next being the shape, as it was completely rounded all the way around. The final difference were the eight holes drilled into it instead of the usual two; two were obviously eyeholes, and the other six were obviously meant to be air holes to breathe, as they were placed directly in front of the area the mouth should be.

Strangely enough, there were black lines etched into the surface of the mask. Each one came directly from one of the air holes and looked vaguely like cat whiskers.

"Really?" she deadpanned, making sure to get across how irritated she was with him.

Even with the mask covering the lower portion of his face, Blake could tell that Kaneki was smiling cheekily at her.

She shook her head disbelievingly, half-tempted to retort, but decided against any retaliation. Instead, she put the stupid mask on, which was a rather simple affair, since all she had to do was wrap an elastic strap around her head and adjust it so that her eyes were aligned with their corresponding openings.

"So how exactly are we getting inside that place?" the bow-bearing bookworm asked her companion. The question immediately forced him back into his usual serious demeanor, which amused her slightly.

"Straight through the front door," the masked man answered with a crack of his index finger. "Junior owns the place, and all of his men already know me, so they should let us in without too much trouble."

"Alright then…" Blake trailed off. As her words died, her suspicion of the situation skyrocketed.

What exactly could he have done to garner so much respect from a group of criminals? Blake mused to herself. She opened her mouth to ask that very question, but decided to leave it for a later time.

"You ready to go?" Kaneki asked her. When she nodded in response, the snowy-haired young man stepped off the roof and allowed himself to plummet to the ground feet first.

Blake sighed in exasperation, unsheathed Gambol Shroud from its metal sheath on her back, and followed him down.

* * *

Blake felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as she walked down the sidewalk, Kaneki at her side. "Hey, are you alright?" she heard her companion ask her in a low whisper, probably having sensed her tension.

"Yeah," she whispered back, attempting to look back at previous experiences to calm herself. "It's just been a long time since I've been treated to this kind of atmosphere." She smiled lightly under her mask. "I guess my time at Beacon has made me a bit soft," she joked.

That was more or less the truth of the situation.

When she was with the White Fang, she would routinely be forced to stay in environments where it felt like she could've been attacked, if she were to ever let her guard down.

The only times where she felt anything remotely like that over the duration of her time at Beacon were the few times when the teachers allowed her to leave the walls of Vale and meander into the Grimm-infested wilderness. Other than that, her days were spent in places where everything that could be considered dangerous was controlled, so much so that it actually reached the point where it started to feel like nothing more than a simple exercise that an accurate recreation of an actual dangerous situation.

It was clear to her now that she'd gotten soft, too used to the school environment. That much was obvious if she was letting the stares of a few thugs get under her skin.

"Hang in there. Junior's club is right around the corner," Kaneki murmured, attempting to reassure her. Whether it actually did was completely lost to her under her aforementioned paranoia. At least, that was the case until she heard him say, "There, people will be so wrapped up with themselves that they won't even notice you."

A wave of nostalgia washed over Blake when she heard those familiar words come out of his mouth. The uncomfortable smile she had plastered on earlier melted into one that was one part nostalgia and one part amusement.

"Using my own words against me, huh?" she said wryly. "Never thought I'd see the day where you'd stoop so low."

The faunus couldn't see underneath her companion's mask, but she could still tell that he had smiled from the way its corners moved upwards slightly. As she stared at him, she idly noted how amusing and, in a way, endearing, he would've been in any other situation. It was almost like she was looking at a plush kitten holding a flamethrower.

"You caught that?" he asked her sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.

"It was pretty obvious," she replied nonchalantly.

He let out a muffled chuckle that was as sheepish as his voice was earlier, stating, "Well, the words seemed to fit in this situation, so…"

"It's fine," Blake assured him. "Truth be told, I'm actually kind of surprised that remembered something like that, especially from all the way back then." She let out a bemused snort. "Never thought you'd be the type to be so sentimental."

"You make it sound like being sentimental is a bad thing," he shot back, a fair amount of confusion and offense in his voice, which told her that he wasn't going to deny that he was what she called him.

"It's not," she conceded to him. "It's just that I never thought you of all people would be the type to care about such trivial matters." She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. "I don't know, you always just seemed like the type of person who never let their past affect them too much."

"Really now?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused. "I've always thought that it was the opposite."

"How so?" Blake questioned, the same amount of confusion in her voice.

The masked half ghoul averted his one visible eye off and began to scratch his cheek sheepishly, before cracking his index finger with his thumb.

"It's sort of personal," he said, making it very clear that he was uncomfortable with the topic. "Are you sure you want to hear something like that?"

Without a single ounce of hesitation, she gave a quick nod of her head and replied with, "Yeah, I do."

"A-alright, I'll be sure to tell you once we're in a more appropriate location," he stuttered, in an almost begrudging way. "There are too many ears here, and I'd rather not have these sort of people know any of those things about me."

Blake opened her mouth to protest, but she closed it when she realized that he was very much in the right in the situation. There were betters times for talks like that, and now, being stared down by some of the lowest of society's low, wasn't one of those times.

"Alright," she conceded once more, prompting the two to fall into a bout of awkward silence.

They remained that way until Kaneki turned a corner, revealing the front entrance of the building she saw earlier, and said, "Alright, we're here."

"I was going to save this question for later, but how exactly did you manage to track down and gain the trust of the boss of the guys who attacked and took an entire settlement of people hostage?" she whispered as they approached the entrance of the club.

"Tracking them down was actually really simple," Kaneki explained. "I figured that any group who was strong enough to amass enough firepower to take over that amount of people would most likely be hiding in the less reputable parts of town and have a good amount of influence over it. I went around asking questions, knowing that they would catch wind of my snooping eventually and come to me." He cracked a joint in his middle finger and continued. "After that, I forced the two who came to warn me to stop snooping to tell me where their base of operations was. When I let them go, I told them to tell their boss that I was coming to see him."

"Sounds rather personable," Blake commented, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

The snowy-haired young man let out an annoyed snort. "The only way to get people in charge of gangs that use violence against others is to use violence against them," he replied. "Otherwise, they won't even give you the time of day."

"You know, for someone who claims that their last occupation was on a cafe's waitstaff," she said, with an equal amount of amusement and seriousness in her voice, "you seem to know quite a lot about the inner psyche of gangs run by violent criminals, don't you?"

"Well, you're not wrong," he agreed with a brief sideway nod of his head. "I had to work with a lot of gangs like this when I decided to leave the cafe to look for some answers I wanted."

"'Answers'?" Blake parroted, raising her eyebrow curiously at him.

"I can't really say much about it right now," Kaneki stated, gesturing to the area around them with a wave of his hand. "But I can tell you that it had to deal with the doctor that turned me into what I am today."

"Oh, alright," she replied with a nod of her own, deciding that this was a conversation that was best saved for later.

It was part of the explanation Ozpin had given to her and her teammates after they learned about Kaneki being a ghoul. He told them about how the snowy-haired young man was turned into a ghoul by a crazy doctor after he was attacked by one. Knowing that, she could understand why he would want to save that conversation for later.

A silence blanketed itself over them after that. It wasn't a comfortable one like she was used to, but she couldn't say that it wasn't a particularly awkward one either. It was a strange silence, one that buried itself deep in the middle of both extremes, and for the life of her, Blake could not figure out how she felt about it. Although she was grateful that it didn't become awkward between them like it tended to over the past couple weeks, she always figured that the awkwardness stemmed from how close they were, and for there to just be nothing between them, it made her feel as if she walking next to a stranger.

Now look who's being sentimental, she berated herself, walking with Kaneki over to the front door of the night club.

There, standing in front of the double doors leading inside, was a gigantic man wearing the same suit as the men she saw at the settlement.

He must be the bouncer or something… the masked faunus thought to herself, watching her partner walk right up to him, ... so how are you planning on getting past him, I wonder?

The two men stared each other down in complete silence. The standoff was soon broken when the smaller of the two men reached his hand up and cracked his index finger.

The bouncer flinched at the sound and stepped out of the way almost immediately. This prompted the masked half ghoul to let out an exasperated snort as he stepped past the defeated man wordlessly. An amused smile crept onto Blake's lips as she followed Kaneki past the bouncer and into the club, having to pick up her pace slightly to keep up with him.

"Make sure you keep close while we're in here," Kaneki told her once she fell back into place at his side.

"Why?" she asked skeptically. "We've already been over this, I don't need you to look out for me."

He blinked his one visible grey eye at her owlishly, before averting his gaze to the side opposite to her and moving to apologize, "Sorry, force of habit."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" she shot him a question curiously.

Kaneki scratched at his cheek with a black-nailed finger as he answered. "I guess you can say that it's one of my bigger flaws as a person. I have a tendency to try and protect people even though they might not need it."

Memories of Kaneki jumping out of a bullhead in a vain attempt to save her flashed in her mind. In a much harsher tone than she meant, Blake replied. "Yeah, I've noticed."

Her masked companion didn't even flinch at the words; instead, he chuckled in a way that sounded strangely nostalgic to her.

"If it makes you feel better, you should know that I'd only go that far for people I really care about," he stated. Again, Blake could tell he was smiling; she could practically feel the warmth of it through both of their masks.

A warm smile of her own formed on her lips, a faint blush grew on her cheeks in response to the statement. She crossed her arms over her chest and adverted her eyes, silently grateful that there was a mask hiding her embarrassment.

Silence overtook them once more as they walked down the hallway leading to the main section of the club, but unlike the distant-feeling silence that plagued them before, the current lack of conversation that they were enraptured in felt much more comfortable.

"Alright, Junior should be right through here," Kaneki stated as they approached the doors that separated them from the main hallway. "Keep an eye out for him, he should be relatively easy to pick out from the rest of them… y'know, if he's actually here."

Blake nodded as she watched her partner push the double doors open and walk through them before following him in.

The first thing Blake noticed were just how many of the black-and-red suit clad men were in the room, staring at them. She counted thirty shade-covered gazes in total being directed in her direction the moment she and Kaneki entered.

Her amber eyes scanned the large, circular, high-ceilinged room she found herself in. Like Kaneki had said, she found his contact almost immediately; a task that was probably made a thousand times easier due to the fact that their contact was much taller than any of the lower level thugs around them.

He was a tall man, with short black hair; and unlike the rest of his men, he didn't wear the standard full black suit and red tie. He instead wore an outfit that was similar to Kaneki's; a white button-up, a black tie, a black vest and a pair of matching black slacks. The only real difference was that 'Junior' was wearing his shirt buttoned up while Kaneki's remained separated down the middle. The tall man's eyes fell upon them, and suddenly, a warm smiled appeared on his lips, destroying any and all tension that had been growing inside Blake.

"Eyepatch!" he exclaimed jovially, raising a bottle of some alcoholic substance in the air in what she assumed was a greeting. "There's my favorite masked man of the week!"

'Eyepatch', as their contact so lovingly dubbed him, strode over to the counter where the much taller man was standing without a single ounce of trepidation in his step. Blake took it as a sign of familiarity between the two.

The masked faunus followed her partner's example and followed him over to the bar.

"Hello, Junior," the words slipped from the snowy-haired young man's mouth smoothly despite being heavily muffled by his mask. "How's business been going for you?"

"Better than ever because of you," the supposedly hardened boss of a group of criminals replied in a strangely warm tone. "Now tell me, what can I do for you today?"

"I need to call in that favor you owe me," Kaneki him nonchalantly. "It's nothing too big," he attempted to assure the taller man, "I just need to get some questions answered for me and my friend here, and we'll be out of your hair."

"Compared to what you did for me yesterday, that sounds like you're trying to low ball yourself," Junior said, voice filled with amusement as he crossed his thicks arms over his chest. "And I've never declined a deal that leans heavily in my favor, so what'd you want to know?"

What in the world are they talking about? the bow-bearing bookworm asked herself, her hidden eyes bouncing back-and-forth between the two as the conversation continued.

"Your men," the shorter of the two men began, his one visible eye scanning around the room that was currently crawling with said men. "You hired them out a couple of weeks ago, right?" The eye, that was once scanning around the room, suddenly focused directly on the burly man as he asked, "It had something to do with a robbery at a dust shop, correct?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Junior said with a slight nod of his head. "Was for a girly looking creep with orange hair. Torchwick." The contact then cupped his chin with a gloved hand and added, "We actually get requests to do stuff for him a lot, it's mostly robberies, but he did have my men help one of his associates take an entire settlement hostage not too long ago."

As her eyes fell back onto Kaneki, Blake noticed that he had somewhat flinched at the mention of the settlement, which made it clear to her that the events that transpired there weighed more on his mind that he let on.

The snowy-haired young man cracked his index finger before asking, "Any more recent requests? Preferably one from the past couple of days?"

"Not that I know of," the gang boss replied with a shake of his head. "Haven't heard so much as a peep from Torchwick, which probably means he's working with an organization other than us if he's still robbing dust shops."

"I think I can already guess the answer to this question, but did he ever tell you why he was stealing all that dust in the first place?" Kaneki asked. Junior simply shook his head in response. Then, without warning, Kaneki turned his head towards Blake for the first time in the conversation and asked, "Alright, did you want to ask something?"

"Yeah," she replied as the burly contact turned to face her. At first, she thought about asking about whether or not he knew anything about who this Torchwick person was working with, but stopped when she realized that he already answered that question indirectly. She decided to ask another question instead. "Have you heard about the ship that's coming into the docks in a couple days? The one with all the dust on it?"

"Yeah, heard from a friend of mine that it's going to be quite the shipment," Junior answered, nodding his head curtly. "Why'd you want to know?"

"We think that there might be a chance someone is going to try and steal the shipment," Kaneki cut in suddenly. "It just so happens to be in our best interest to stop that from happening."

"I don't know what this person did to get this kind of attention from you, but I can't say I envy 'em," Junior joked, chuckling good-heartedly. "Well, I can't say I know much about the details of the shipment, other than it's happening…"

"That's fine," Blake reassured him. "I just wanted to compare info and see if you knew anything we didn't."

"Well, it's nice to have been of service, Miss…" he trailed off in a heavy-handed attempt to get her to tell him a name.

She opened her mouth to shoot down the attempt, but Kaneki cut her off before she could say a word. "You can just call her Cat Lady," he said, sounding cheesier than Blake had ever heard him. She huffed in annoyance and sent a glare Kaneki's way. The corners of his mask tugged up, giving away the grin underneath.

"'Cat Lady'?" Junior parroted with a raised brow, contemplating the validity of the irritating nickname her companion had given her. "Hm, I can see it."

Not seeing the need to waste time in refuting the statement, she settled with shaking her head and telling the masked ghoul off later on.

"Well, like I was trying to say earlier, it's nice to have been of service Cat Lady, Eyepatch," Junior finished what he was saying earlier with a polite nod of his head.

"Alright, I think that's all we wanted to know," Kaneki stated, giving the contact a polite nod of his own before he turned his single-eyed gaze towards her, "or did you have anything else you wanted to ask?"

The cat-eared faunus contemplated answering the question, but eventually decided to shake her head. She definitely had some questions she wanted to ask Junior about his relation to her teammate, but she felt as though the contact wouldn't give anything away with Kaneki in such close proximity.

"Alright then," the snowy-haired half ghoul said, giving the much taller man a nod as he began to turn towards the exit. "We'll be off then."

With that, he strode back towards the doors they came entered from. Blake gave the surprisingly cooperative gang boss a nod before she followed Kaneki out of the club.

"Y'know, for the boss of a group of hardened criminals, he was oddly friendly with you," Blake commented when she caught up with him, using it a tone that she hoped made it sound offhanded. "What exactly did you have to do get that level of trust from him in less than a day?"

"I guess you could say that I helped him pick some coffee beans," he answered, cupping his leather-covered chin with his left hand.

He's cupping his chin again… Blake noted, a frown forming under her mask, ... that has to be a nervous tell of some kind.

She wanted to call him out on it, but yet again, she decided against saying something in favor of saving the conversation for a more appropriate time and place.

A time and a place… A time and a place… she repeated to herself, over and over again to lessen the frustration that was growing inside her.

For the fourth time that day, the two fell into silence, but unlike the last couple times, she had every intention to break it once they were in a secluded enough location.

Because after what she witnessed today, she had a plethora of questions she wanted to ask him.

* * *

Blake's nose twitched as she took a deep drag of air. It was completely and utterly saturated with the smell of salt, which was something she probably should've expected, considering they were staking out the docks.

The sound of footsteps clanging against the metal surface of the crate she was currently lying on came from directly behind her, catching her attention almost immediately. She knew who it was instantly, but to make one-hundred percent sure, she called out to the new arrival. "Kaneki, that you?"

"Yeah," the snowy-haired half ghoul replied, sitting himself down next to her. "Has anything of note happened?"

"No, not really," the bow-wearing bookworm replied with a shake of her head. "So where'd you run off to?" Deciding that the situation on the docks wasn't going to be changing any time soon, she took her gaze off of them and on to her newly arrived partner. "You've been gone for an awfully long time. How long has it been, fifteen or twenty minutes already?"

"More like fourteen," he answered simply, reaching into the confines of his vest. He pulled out a green object that was wrapped completely in clear plastic and placed it next to her face. "Here. I may not need to eat, but the last time I checked, you definitely do."

She blinked at the object and immediately realized that it was a green apple. A small bit of warmth spiked up inside her at the thought of him going out of his way to get it for her, which surprised her, despite the act being quite typical for him.

Shifting herself into a sitting position, Blake picked up the green fruit and began to free it from the protective seal around it. She murmured a soft thank you to her teammate as she took a bite out of it.

It tasted just like she expected it to, but her lack of eating for nearly an entire day made it taste a million times better. She turned amber eyes back on to the docks as she munched on the food in her mouth, watching the silhouettes of the workers as they moved from one place to another like a horde of ants.

"Hey Kaneki," Blake said to the young man sitting next to her. After a few second's pause, he turned to look at her. She began to rub the back of her hand nervously as she asked, "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Sure, why wouldn't it be?" he asked in a tone that made it sound like she should've already known the answer.

"Ah, well…" she trailed off, averting her eyes as she continued. "... It's sort of a personal one."

"Ah, fire away then," the snowy-haired half ghoul replied with an understanding nod. "It's probably only fair," he added, just as a high powered light passed over them, causing the young man to glow in the light momentarily. "I mean, you told me about your connection with the White Fang, so…"

Taking that as a sign to go ahead and ask her questions, she took another moment to figure out how exactly she wanted to word it to him. Finally, she spoke. "Back when Ozpin told me and others about how you became a ghoul, he said that you were turned into one a couple of years ago. What exactly was your life like before then?"

"Nothing too exciting…" Kaneki murmured, almost immediately. Doing as Blake did earlier and presumably taking a moment to decide on the words he wanted to say, he paused before continuing. "Truth be told, it was really more depressing than anything else."

"How so?" Blake felt compelled to ask back.

She could hear him take in an audible breath, in and out, as he began with his explanation. "When I was younger, I lived with my mother. My father had died when I was small, and she worked herself to the bone everyday for me and her leech of a sister."

Blake's eyes widened at the sheer anger that presented itself in his voice when he said those words. However, Kaneki wasn't done. "My mother was too cowardly to deny her sister money we could've used to make our lives better. Instead, she worked herself so hard that she died." Anger had begun to appear in his expression as well, his dull eyes narrowing as he spoke. "She decided that it was more important to her to try and not lose anyone important to her than to make sure her own son wouldn't have to live in the world without her."

"You sound like you hate her quite a bit," the faunus stated, in hopes of having him elaborate further.

"Yeah, I do. But it wasn't always like that," he explained, cracking his index finger. "There used to be a time where I held her in the highest possible reverence." His tone was bitter as black coffee. "And truth is, I probably wouldn't hate her as much as I do now if she hadn't instilled that same weakness in me."

Blake thought back to what he said, about his habit of assuming that he needed to protect everyone that was close to him. Was he trying to tell her that the reason why he acted that way was because of his mother?

"After she passed, I went to go live with my aunt and her family," he continued. "The same aunt who helped suck the life out of my mother." A sardonic chuckle let itself out from his lungs as he added, "Everything was fine at first, and I genuinely wanted her to be proud of me, and for a while, she seemed like she wanted me to become a part of the family, but…" Kaneki's face lost all of its sardonicism and adopted a much lonelier expression. "... But eventually, all of that changed too."

"What happened?" Blake felt all but compelled to ask that question, even if it touched upon a topic that he was uncomfortable with sharing. She was sure that he expected it to come.

"Prior to my adoption, she already had her own, actual son... and let's just say that he wasn't a very good student." The answer came out with almost zero emotion once again. "Instead of doing his homework or studying like I did, he would play video games nonstop." Yet underneath that haze of emptiness, there was an underlying feel of isolation in his voice. "His mother saw my successes and his failures, and remembered the fact that she and my mother were in the very same situation when they were younger. She resented me for that and gradually began to ignore me."

Blake felt as though she could piece together what happened next to him from there, but to make sure she was correct with her assumptions, she asked, "What happened then?"

"You ever hear that expression about home being where the heart is?" He ended up answering her question with one of his own. She nodded in response. "Well, I guess you can say that despite the fact that I lived in that place, it never became anywhere close to what a home should be."

Those words and the loneliness that they harbored within told Blake all she needed to know. She decided to not press him for anymore information after that.

The faunus honestly pitied the young man sitting next to her. She couldn't even begin to understand what he went through, living in such a cold and unloving environment. Mainly because her own childhood home, despite all of its shortcomings, always felt like a home and had people who loved her inside it.

"It wasn't all bad though," the snowy-haired half ghoul mentioned, a wistful smile growing on his face as he spoke. "I had friend growing up, or to be honest, he was my only friend growing up." With that sentence came another crack of his finger and yet another explanation. "He always stuck by me and made me feel just a little bit less alone in the world."

"He sounds like a good friend," Blake commented offhandedly, not expecting him to respond in any way, shape or form.

"He was the best." In the end, Kaneki ended up defying her expectations for the millionth time since the first day she met him.

Silence reigned over them once again after, and they both decided to sit in it for a moment. Blake used the silence to gather her thoughts and assumed he used it to do the same.

Honestly, despite the ever-growing pit that was forming in her stomach and how incredibly selfish it sounded in her head, she wanted to keep talking to him about his past. She knew that it was probably extremely hard on him to have to relive such memories, but she took every word he told to her and used it as justification for her asking.

Each and every word that came out of his mouth had that quality that made it feel as though it was the first time he's said anything to anyone about it. It felt good to know that she had somehow managed to wriggle her way deep enough into his heart to warrant such openness from him, but in the end, she still felt pretty conflicted about the entire situation. She wanted to know how much further she could push him, to see just how much he'd be willing to share with her, but she didn't want to have to watch him hurt himself to do so.

"Hey, Blake." Aforementioned girl was yanked out of her thoughts by the voice of the young man she was thinking about. "Can I ask you a question?"

She would've nodded her head, but noticed that his eyes were no longer trained on her and were instead focused on the docks below them, so she was forced to verbally announce her approval instead. "Yeah, go ahead."

It was only fair that he get to ask a question given how earnestly she answered hers, after all.

"Why exactly did you come here to Beacon?" He asked. It felt like a question he had been pondering the answer to for quite a long time. "If you were in the White Fang like you said, why in the world are you here learning how to become a hunter?"

She opened her mouth to answer, not knowing why he asked it in the first place since she's already answered it, but before any words could come out of her mouth, he added, "I can understand you not being able to agree with the direction they were heading, but that still doesn't fully explain why you just gave up on them and left."

"'Gave up?'" She repeated his words with wide eyes, not having expected a question like that to come from him. "What gave you the impression that I gave up on the White Fang?"

"You're here and not there," he answered in a tone that lacked any emotion once again. "What more reason do I need?"

Blake's mouth opened to deny the accusation, but she stopped herself when she found the words to do so were almost non-existent inside of her. Feeling extremely irritated, she instead asked, "What in the world even brought this on?"

That irritation left her almost immediately as she saw his once blank slate of a face adopt that same sadness he had back in the settlement. The one, that she hated to say, seemed so natural on him.

"It's because I did the same to him," he replied. "The friend I was telling you about." His hands balled themselves up into fists as he turned his head down towards the ground. "The moment I became a half-ghoul, I lost all faith in him…" A bitter chuckle escaped from his lips as he added, "... I thought of him more as a liability and not as the friend who stuck by me through those lonely years."

"…" Blake wanted to say that she had instantly come up with some sort of rebuttal to his claim, that she vehemently believed what he did was different from what she had done, but she just couldn't come up with the right words. So she went with what had to be the most pathetic response that she could've come up with. "N-no, I didn't give up on the White Fang-"

"So what, did the White Fang, a group of hundreds of faunus, give up on you then?" His words unnerved her greatly. This was her first time being on the receiving end of this part of Kaneki's personality, which was probably why it threw her off so much to begin with. This side of him, the side that would occasionally pop up when he fought, was completely and utterly ruthless in getting what he wanted. It didn't matter to him who it was directed towards it seemed. Not even friends were exempt from this treatment, and she didn't know how she felt about that.

"Do you hear how that arrogant that sounds?" Another sign of his amusement came from him, but this time it erupted from his lungs as a full-blown laugh that was filled with so much sardonicism that it somehow sounded like it had come from another person entirely. "The White Fang clearly doesn't care about you at all, so why do you even pretend to care?"

"Pretend?" The parrot of his words left her mouth with the greatest amount of indignance she could muster up. "I'm not pretending to care about what happens to the White Fang." She wanted to make it clear to him that she was fuming with her voice and it seemed successful-well, at least it did to her. "I don't care what prior experience you have in the subject." She cared about the White Fang, why else would she be out here? "What happened to me and what happened to you are two different things." Her words were coming out as nothing more than aggressive growls at this point, but she couldn't bring herself to care. "So don't you dare try to compare the two or question how loyal I am, understand?"

Silence is what decided to greet her instead of a response.

The snowy-haired half ghoul simply continued to stare off into space, showing absolutely no sign indicating any sort of reaction to what she had said. Truthfully, she didn't know whether or not she should feel disappointed by that.

* * *

"You're not even going to bother apologizing?" Blake eventually asked, having grown sick of the silence between them over the past couple hours. The fact that nothing had happened on the docks for the exact same amount of time only made it even harder to bear. This act garnered nothing more than a confused expression from him. One that made it seem like he wasn't aware of what he was apologizing for, and so she decided to educate him. "For what you said earlier, I mean."

"Did those words really hurt you that much?" Kaneki shot back at her. She half expected him to laugh after he asked that. "And here I thought you were ready to get to know me better."

"Get to know you better?" She repeated those words in a way that sounded like a toddler after they were caught doing something bad.

He nodded, before sending her a sideways glance and asking her yet another question. "Wasn't that what you were trying to do by asking me those questions earlier?" The sound of his emotionless voice coupled with his piercing stare sent a chill up and down her spine, but she managed to nod despite it. "Well, I just learned something about you, do you want to know what it was?" He continued before she could even open her mouth. "I learned that you and I really are similar in a lot of ways."

"Similar?" The bow-bearing bookworm found herself repeating his words once again, though this time was much more sarcastic than the last. "What in the world made you think about that?"

"Hey, you want to hear something else from my past that you may find interesting?" the black clad young man asked suddenly. Blake was about to ask him what he was trying to say, but stopped herself when she realized that there was probably an explanation coming.

"When I was younger, when my mother was still alive, I was cast as the lead role of a play." From the nostalgic expression that was plastered all over his face, she could tell he was speaking the truth. "I practiced and practiced every night, and when the night finally came, I did so well that my teacher and even a few of the parents told me that I seemed like a natural-born actor." A bitter chuckle came from his throat as he continued. "The funny part was that I never volunteered for the part to begin with, and I never made any indication that I wanted it in the first place."

"Why did they choose you for the part then?" She asked him confusedly.

"The class volunteered me for the role." He answered with slight mirth to his voice. "They all claimed that it was because the words were too hard to read, but I knew that they were only doing it to spite me for being able to read books way above anything they could even comprehend at the time."

"Then why did you go through with it?" Blake asked him another question, but this one was followed by another one. "Was it out of spite?"

"No, I did it because of something my mother taught me when I was younger." Despite what he was saying, the correction Kaneki had given her came out in the most spiteful voice she'd ever heard. "'It's better to be hurt yourself than to hurt others'." The words flowed from his mouth with a strange smoothness that felt rehearsed in a way. "That's the reason why I did everything I could to help people who didn't care about me at all."

"What exactly are you trying to say here?" She asked him with furrowed brows, thoroughly confused as to what he was trying to get at. "That the only reason I'm out here investigating these robberies right now is because I'm stubbornly holding onto a belief from my childhood?"

"Yes, actually," he answered bluntly, a wry smirk spread across his lips. What left his lips next left with a lightness that hadn't been present for the entirety of their conversation, and it made her smile. "It's nice to know that I don't have to explain things in their entirety again."

"Well, I can't say that I agree with you, but I do have admit that you make a good point," she began to concede, her tone harboring a mix of reluctance and amusement. "Alright, let's say that, hypothetically, you're right, and I'm only doing it because of my own pigheadedness." Blake brought her knees up to her chest and tucked her head in between them. "What do you think I should do to fix it?"

"Other than being less stubborn," he quipped cheekily, which prompted her to let out a feign of a chuckle, "I think that you should try and indulge in what you have here in Beacon." Her eyes unconsciously widened at this. "You have a really good thing here, and I don't want to see you making the same mistakes I did-the same mistakes I'm making right now, actually."

"So, is that what you were trying to tell me earlier when you said that we were similar?" The most obvious question slipped from her mouth, but she could've really cared less about originality at this point. "Because you see the mistakes you've made in me?"

"Yeah."

"Couldn't you have just told me that from the get go?"

"Of course. I like to think that I always have a method to my madness."

"Ah, so you're just going to flat out admit that this entire conversation was illogical then?"

"To you maybe. It seemed perfectly within the realms of logic to me."

"You say that, right after calling your previous statement 'madness'? You're not very good at convincing people to think things, are you?"

"I'm not, I'll freely admit that, but it's not like I'm trying to be a motivational speaker or anything."

"What? Does that mean you're trying to become a hunter then? I thought you were only staying here for as long as it takes to find a way home…" A bit of sadness crept into Blake's voice as she reminded herself of that fact by accident. She then began to idly wonder what her life at Beacon would be like without Kaneki's presence. It was funny for her to think about, but he had only started attending the school less than half a semester ago. And yet he still somehow managed to wriggle his way deeper into her heart and mind than almost all of her other teammates. In that amount of time at the very least.

Before she could delve deeper into the depressing possibilities, Blake was stopped dead in her mental tracks by a weight that rested itself on her right shoulder. She glanced over at aforementioned shoulder and found that the color white had taken up a majority of her vision.

"Yeah, I did say that, didn't I?" The half ghoul's voice resonated in her ears, despite its softness. "I'm sure I also said that I was making the same mistakes you were earlier."

For the millionth time today, silence reigned over them once more as Blake decided to lay her head on his. A wry smile graced her lips.

* * *

"Kaneki!" A familiar voice half-whispered, half-yelled at him, shaking him from the confines of his slumber with a slight start. "Kaneki, get up!"

The aforementioned half-ghoul, having sensed the tension present in the voice, forced his weary eyes open and immediately found himself staring up into familiar pools of amber.

"Blake…?" He called weakly, pulling himself off of the metal wall-the wall he had seemingly fallen asleep against. "Did something happen?"

The bow-bearing bookworm, in response to the statement, crept back over to the ledge of the shipping container they had been camped up on for the entirety of the last twenty hours and laid down stomach first right at its edge, which prompted him to do the same.

Once his eyes were over the edge and staring down at the docks below, he was surprised to find the once empty docks were now crawling with activity. There, moving constantly from one place to another, were men he assumed to be soldiers of some kind. A pretty easy assumption for him to make when they were all clad in full uniform.

"Is that-?" he began to ask his companion, but she cut him off before he could finish.

"Yeah, that's them," she answered with a solemn nod of her head. "They're…" She unsurprisingly paused for a second before finished her train of thought, "... they're definitely members of the White Fang."

I probably should've been able to guess that, Kaneki thought to himself. Y'know, since they all have the organization's logo painted on their backs.

"Alright, what do you suggest we do then?" He asked Blake, curious as to how she would respond. "Do you want to try and intervene, or…"

"I think we should-" she began to say, but she cut herself off suddenly, right as her eyes seemed to focus on something down on the docks.

Following her gaze downwards, Kaneki soon found himself staring at an orange-haired man who stood out from the rest of the pack. A fact that he directly attributed to the fact the man was the only one wearing a complete suit in a sea filled with body armor and holding a cane.

"Hey, what's the hold up?" The man yelled, in a tone that sounded awfully condescending. "C'mon, pick up the pace, folks!" There was something strangely familiar about that voice, but the snowy-haired ghoul couldn't place where he'd heard it before. Maybe it was something that only Haise was able to recognize? "We're not exactly inconspicuous at the moment!"

Glancing back over at the former White Fang member at his side to gauge her reaction, he found that she wasn't doing anything that surprised him. She was glaring at the well-dressed man directing the faunus on the docks with narrowed pools of amber. The disappointment in her eyes was being steadily replaced by a fury that leaked in from a source that was unknown to him.

"This isn't right," Blake muttered, loud enough for Kaneki to just barely hear, which made him assume that she was talking more to herself than him. "The White Fang would never work with a human." After saying that, she pushed herself to her feet faster than he could protest and pulled her weapon out from its sheathe. "Especially not a human like that."

"Blake, stop," Kaneki told her right as she took a step towards the edge of the container, making sure to use a hard enough voice to get her to listen. "Are you really just going to charge in there without a plan?" The question left his mouth as he pushed himself up to his feet. "You can't expect to just be able to take them all down by charging in their with reckless abandon," he continued. "We should at least take a moment to come up with a plan."

The dark-haired faunus let out a scoff and turned towards him, flashing him a wry smirk that somehow managed to exude extreme amounts of confidence, despite its size. He was half-convinced that he managed to convince her into taking a moment to think things through. But then, in a move that should only have surprised him half as much as it did, she took a step back off of the shipping container, uttering a few words to him right before she fell. "Like that's stopped you before."

An exasperated sigh left his lips as he shook his head at the blatant shot at him. He had no sooner done so then he took a step forwards.

* * *

Kaneki could tell from his position up on another shipping container that Blake was going to need his assistance.

At first, he was content with watching her take on the members of her former affiliate and the nicely dressed man leading them. A choice that was seemingly affirmed as the right one when he saw her successfully sneak up behind the orange-haired man and put a blade up to his throat.

The artificial ghoul watched as she tried to appeal to the members of the White Fang, even going so far as removing the bow hiding the cat ears. Only for it to quite literally blow up in her face when two bullheads suddenly flew in from out of nowhere, which distracted Blake enough for the man to shoot an explosive of some kind at her feet from his cane.

Kaneki would've intervened right at that moment if it wasn't for the fact that Blake somehow managed to escape the blast relatively unscathed. She was now on the retreat, dodging blasts from the man's cane with skill and agility.

Seeing that as the perfect opportunity to set up an ambush for the man firing at his partner, he had moved himself up on to the container he was now currently squatting on, as it was right on the path Blake was on, and was now lying in wait for the perfect opportunity to strike.

When his aforementioned partner in crime passed by him with the orange-haired man following in slow, calculating pursuit, he cracked his index finger and proceeded to push himself off of his stoop in a way that ensured he would land in front of said man.

"Here, kitty, kitty," the man taunted, right before Kaneki hit the floor and landed directly in front of him, remembering to crouch upon impact to lessen any strain that might be put on his knees. "Oh, another one?" The snowy-haired half ghoul stood to face the assumed leader of the robbery as he asked that. "That's just great, now I have another brat I'm going to have to deal with," the awfully familiar orange-haired man groaned with an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders. "And here I thought this dock robbery was going to perfectly smoothly."

Kaneki let out an irritated snort through his nostrils and took a step towards his newly gained adversary, but was forced to stop when a bullhead suddenly swooped in overhead and released a total count of five men, who all landed right behind the man in question with their weapons ready. All members of White Fang, from what he could tell by their uniform.

"What?" The man asked as the five landed behind him, arms extended out wide to the sides in a mocking gesture. "You don't seriously think I'd let this fight be an even one, did you?" He then proceeded to point his cane right at the only ghoul in all of Remnant and add, "No, that'd be just plain stupid of me, which sort of reminds me of you right now for getting in my way." The half ghoul gave no response to the taunt and that prompted the orange-haired man to command his men with an exaggerated shrug of a single shoulder, "Sic him."

At that moment, acting almost as if they were a pack of dogs listening to the commands of their master, all five of the foot soldiers charged at him with reckless abandon, weapons raised, which prompted Kaneki to let out a scoff and crack his middle finger as they neared.

Looks like they're not all equal in terms of speed, the rinkaku-type noted offhandedly. That's good. Makes it much easier to deal with them all.

The fastest of the five, and the first to reach him, slashed at his head diagonally with his blade. Kaneki tilted his head and body underneath it with ease, causing the soldier to fly past him. Turning, he then sent the underside of his shoe straight into the back of the grunt's knee as he slowed himself to a stop, which caused it to buckle almost immediately.

The artificial ghoul then grabbed the poor grunt by the collar and threw him straight at one of the other men charging him, making sure to throw said grunt with enough force to incapacitate the both of them instantly.

The three remaining men stopped momentarily to look at their fallen comrades, but continued with their charge towards him a second later. The first swung at his midsection, the second swung at his head, and the third decided to hang back and wait, probably to try an attack on him when he was most vulnerable. In response to the group's actions, Kaneki dodged both of the incoming swings by sidestepping right and ducking. Unlike the first man to attack him, both of the grunts hadn't built enough momentum in their charge to soar past him after their attacks failed, and remained close to him instead.

Taking a small step forward, he turned on a heel towards the one who swung at his head and made sure that the tip of his shoe met with his stomach. Said grunt keeled over due to the impact of the attack. Kaneki then proceeded to grab the back of the afflicted's shirt and pull him into his body while simultaneously forcing a knee into the center of the man's stomach, which resulted with his opponent laying flat on his back after flipping forwards thanks to the momentum.

Once that opponent was dealt with for the moment, Ken turned his attention back onto his other attacker, who had decided to retry his earlier attack on him. The grunt swung at a trajectory that started from his left shoulder and would eventually lead to the blade entering his own if no action was taken, but as per usual, the expected contact never came. The half ghoul leaned back to just barely miss getting hit by it. A point he found to be moot really, considering the fact he knew that the blade wouldn't hurt him much if it hit him anyways.

As if to prove this, he reached out and grabbed the blade of the sword with the palm of his left hand and pulled it close to his body, taking its owner with it. That, of course, prompted his opponent to lose all balance and stumble towards him with zero defenses up.

Once the man reached an acceptable range, the half ghoul circled his black-tipped fingers around the soldier's throat and lifted him up high, before slamming him down right into the midsection of the soldier he had downed earlier. The two bodies made an audible slapping noise as they collided.

Before he could even take a moment to regather his bearings after doing all that spinning, heavy, rapid footsteps coming from directly behind him and rushing towards where he stood caught his attention. Already knowing that it was probably the one soldier who had waited before attacking, he glanced over his shoulder at where the sound was coming from and found more incoming steel.

An unimpressed click of the tongue left Kaneki's mouth as he spun once more and swatted the blade with the back of his left hand. A loud metallic clang-a sound that was almost loud enough to drown out the sound of his finger bones snapping that followed it-rang out through the air as the blade snapped in half like it was a twig.

The soldier that was facing him stared down at the newly broken blade in his hands and then back up at him with a helpless look that was hidden behind his mask. Not even waiting the couple seconds needed for the bones in his hand to mend, he used his much more usable right hand to land a shot to the man's stomach, which made him crumble to a heap almost instantly.

Now… He thought to himself, right as he heard a clicking noise coming from his immediate right.

Turning that direction, he found that familiar-looking orange-haired man from earlier pointing the tip of his half-cane, half-cannon directly at him. Already knowing what that weapon of his was capable of, he reached into his pocket for his own. The world seemed to move in slow motion as he did so and watched a projectile fire from the cane's tip.

Pressing the needed button on the hilt of his weapon as ripped it out of his pocket, Kaneki slashed down vertically on the incoming projectile,bathe blade sliding out fluidly as he did so. Need to move! The snowy-haired half ghoul subconsciously commanded his body as he knew that one couldn't simply cut an explosive projectile in half and expect to come out completely unscathed.

So, once his blade went clean through said ball of fire, he planted a foot into the ground and shot forwards, feeling both halves of the explosive whiz by his face as he did so. What he felt next was heat licking the back of his clothes-a heat he immediately assumed to be the explosion he was trying to avoid.

Kaneki came upon the orange-haired man within less than a couple seconds and he slashed at his mouthy opponent the moment he got into range.

Metal met with wood as the suited man blocked his initial attack, but was forced backwards due to the amount of force put behind the attack.

"Huh…" The defending of the two trailed off as he tried to push against the force that was being applied against him"...You're a lot more trouble than I thought you'd be." Probably finally realizing that he'd never be able to out-muscle Kaneki, he released himself from the stalemate and jumped back, nonchalantly stating, "You're just like another bug I know." He then narrowed his mascara-lined green eyes at him and added, "Actually, now that I look at you, you're a spitting image of the wimp."

It was now Kaneki's turn to narrow his eyes as he felt an all too familiar pain beginning to radiate from his stomach. Dammit, now is not the time! He cursed in response to the pain, his grip tightening on the hilt of his blade as he took a step towards the man with every intention of ending the fight.

His approach, however, was stopped when an all too familiar black blur swept past him screaming, "He's mine!"

Blake charged towards the orange-haired man and let off a flurry of slashes when she was close enough, but the man managed to block each and every one of them with his cane while also managing to score lighter hits on her in between attacks. He would've been more than happy letting her fight her own battle, but that changed when suddenly, her opponent landed a hit that was able to push her back substantially.

Charging towards with blade in hand, Kaneki passed by his cat-eared companion and sent his own flurry of slashes their adversary's way, only to find himself in what he could only describe as a much more active stalemate than the one he had with the man earlier. He got out attack after attack only to find more metal hitting wood, but whenever his opponent tried to gain the advantage, he was able to fight it back with equal effort.

Their clash persisted until the suit-clad man pointed the tip of his cane down at the floor under his feet and fired another explosive shot, which prompted the snowy-haired half ghoul to flip backwards in retreat. He was more than prepared to shoot forwards when his feet touched the ground, but Blake beat him to it and shot towards the man.

The dark-haired bookworm landed a significant blow on the man, which pushed him back quite a bit. Seeing it as an opportunity to strike, the half ghoul sprang back into the action the moment he got his feet reset and grabbed the man by the lapel as he tried to regain his balance.

A grunt of pain came from his cane-wielding opponent after Kaneki picked him up and slammed him against the wall of a nearby storage container. Said wall's metal surface bent substantially in response to the impact, and a wooden clanging noise rang through the air as he wrenched the weapon out of the man's hand and threw it randomly off on to the ground somewhere.

One knee to the stomach. Another grunt of pain. Another knee elicited a violent coughing fit instead. He smirked at the man's pain before he threw him back over to where Blake was standing, like the piece of trash he was.

"Ugh, that hurt…" He heard the man grumble to himself bitterly as he pushed his way back to his hands and knees. A position he didn't keep for too long; Blake was upon him the moment he began trying, kicked him over onto his back and pointed the tip of her sword right at his throat once more. "Well, if isn't this a familiar sight," the man drawled nonchalantly in response, even though his voice was still quite hoarse from the pain. "What'cha going to do, kitten?" Kaneki narrowed his eyes at the calmness in his voice, now fully expecting a trap to be sprung. "Talk down on me sternly?"

The cat-eared faunus's brows furrowed at the jab and she opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off when the sound of an explosion sounded overhead, an explosion that was accompanied by a bright flash of pure white light from his right.

Of course, his attention was drawn on to where the explosion had come from first and found a sight that nearly made his heart stop. There had been a storage container being help up by a crane sitting right over Blake and the man, and the chain seemed to be the main recipient of the explosion.

The container was falling down towards them. The snowy-haired ghoul moved to act as everyone of his protective instincts flared up inside of him. Sprinting forwards with every ounce of speed he had while throwing his weapon to the ground, he latched onto his partner's torso once he was close enough and pulled her out of the way of the falling object, positioning his body so that he would take the brunt of the tumble across concrete they were about to take. A bright flash of light came from directly besides him as he did so.

Slight amounts of pain erupted through him as he tumbled across the ground like a rock being skipped across a pond, before slowly skidding to a stop on his back. "Hey… you alright?" He asked his companion, who was currently laying on top him with her head next to his own, releasing his hold on her as he remembered that an enemy was currently upon them.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, grunting as she pushed herself up so that their chests weren't touching with her eyes closed, stopping for a moment to open her eyes. If he had to guess as to what she found then, he would have to wager that she had found his eyes like he had found hers. A would be rather embarrassing position any other time than in a combat scenario, most definitely.

Before either of them could speak, however, the sound of someone clapping to a rather slow beat reached their ears m prompting them to turn their heads towards where it was coming from in near perfect unison. They found nothing there other than the smoking wreckage of whatever was in the storage container that had been dropped on them, but a silhouette soon appeared in the smoke, followed by a voice.

"Really now, Haise?" Both Blake and Kaneki recognized that voice almost immediately, but as two entirely different things. Blake remembered her as the woman who had called to taunt her about her friends' capture, and Kaneki remembered her as the woman who plagued his other self's memories nonstop. "You've already managed to replace me in that heart of yours?" Neo asked, with what sounded like mock hurt in her voice as she finally stepped through the smoke, the man's cane gun in hand. "And here I thought I occupied a space in there that just couldn't be replaced. But then again, you've always had a thing for cats."

Upon seeing a known enemy with a weapon, Blake jumped up to her feet and Kaneki rolled himself over onto all fours, and the two faced their newly arrived opponent.

"Neo…" He growled at the approaching opponent, gnashing his teeth together out of anger, already preparing to bring his kagune out for combat. She had tried to severely hurt not just him, but Blake as well…

"What? Did I make you angry?" The tri-colored girl asked him in a mocking tone. "Not happy to see me for once?"

Every question caused the pain in his stomach to rise bit by bit and his anger levels with it, but despite his other self's protests, he wanted to see her completely and utterly obliterated.

"Kaneki, what is she talking about?" Blake asked him with a fair amount of suspicion in her voice, as was warranted. "Do you know her from somewhere?"

"No, I've never met this woman before," the half ghoul answered vaguely as he tried to hold back his anger. "I'll try to answer your question, but for now…"

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," the cat-eared faunus replied with a nod, pointing her weapon at their newly arrived opponent.

Having already discarded his weapon, Kaneki immediately drew the only weapon he had on him-his kagune. Four jet black tentacles slipped smoothly out from where his kakuhou was surgically placed and pointed towards the irritating woman. The snowy-haired half ghoul glanced over at his companion, who did the same. They both nodded at each other before shooting off towards their opponent at the same time.

Knowing that his weapon would be too dangerous to use in tandem with Blake's, he jumped up into the air once he felt it timely enough and stabbed all four tentacles into the ground around Neo as to limit her movement. He watched as Blake moved to take advantage of the opportunity and tried to bash Neo with the pommel of her sword.

Kaneki hoped that the both of them attacked fast enough to take her by surprise, but that hope was immediately dashed when she simply teleported away like before. Instead of landing back on the ground, he remained up in the air, suspended by the four tentacles coming out of his back, eyes darting back and forth across the docks, looking for the woman he knew from another life.

A flash of light came from the corner of his eyes and immediately drew his attention, but before he could see or do anything regarding the light, vibrations coming from directly under him took his attention away from it. Mainly because whatever it was took out all four of his kagune out from under him.

Now falling down towards the ground, he flipped himself in midair so that he would land on his feet, managing to catch a quick glimpse of the area below him and found a crater that had a disturbingly high lack of a certain faunus.

Shit, where the hell is Blake? He asked himself as he landed in a crouching position. Protective instincts flared up as he frantically searched for his teammate. Where is she? Where is she? Where-

"You never change, do you?" When Neo's voice reached his eardrums, he immediately turned his head to face the girl, but he was once again stopped from seeing the origin of the noise by a sudden immense force being applied against the side of his face. Whatever it was hit with enough energy to send him flying into one of the nearby shipping containers. Her next words just barely rang out past the screeching of bending metal as he bounced off of its surface. "Even now, you're still overly protective." The approaching sound of footsteps was the next to ring out through the deafening noise, so Kaneki forced himself to look where it came from.

There, walking towards him, was Neo in all her glory. The gun-cane being replaced by the umbrella she stabbed Haise in the back with. "Calm down, your little friend is going to be fine," the woman told him, reaching her hands out and wrapping her cold fingers around his aching cheeks. An explosion rang through the air as she continued to speak. "She's just a little occupied as of the moment."

"What did you do?" Kaneki growled fiercely, roughly pulling away from her grip and lashing out with a kick to her legs. An attack that, of course, missed its mark and landed him with the bottom of her boot pushed into the side of his face.

"Hey now, didn't I tell you to calm down?" The woman sneered as she pressed her foot down harder on his face. "C'mon, be the good little boy I remember and listen to me."

Having had enough of her abuse, the half ghoul released one of his kagune and allowed it tunnel through the concrete under him. Said predatory organ burst out from the ground right next to his head with its tip pointed directly at his opponent, forcing his colorful haired opponent's foot, and pretty much her entire body, off of him.

"Yeah Kaneki, why won't you listen?" An all too familiar voice forced its way to the forefront of his mind as he pushed himself back up to one knee. "I'm just trying to talk to you, I won't bite, y'know." Deathly cold fingers crept up the length of his spine as the voice made its intentions known to him. "I'm just trying to help you win."

"Shut the fuck up," he growled, at whom, he really didn't know, his anger with the situation finally boiling over with the voice's sudden appearance. "I don't want to listen to a word you have to say."

"Is that really a good idea?" He couldn't tell who he was listening to anymore. Neo's mouth was moving, but the voice in his head was talking at the same time. Maybe they were saying the same things? "You and I both know that you have no chance of winning." The ground took up most of his vision as he shifted his gaze down towards it. "What do you think might happen if you lose here?" His eyes widened at the statement. "What might happen to that precious little friend of yours?"

"What are you…?" He began to ask, but stopped when he remembered a couple choice words the cat-eared faunus said to him. "No, no, no, you're wrong… she'll be fine."

"Am I?" Whoever it was speaking continued, a familiar all encompassing cold now moving to directly in front of him. "Do you think that she'd really be able to beat back two opponents when you can't even beat a single one of them on your own?" His palms began to bleed from how tightly he was clenching his fists. His mind was racing with the possible scenarios. "You need help, just throw your pride away and admit it already."

Kaneki swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and opened his mouth, but he was cut off by a force hitting him straight into yet another shipping container.

* * *

To say Neo was confused with what she was witnessing would've been an understatement. Haise-or Kaneki, as that faunus from earlier called him-no longer seemed to be paying attention to what she was saying. Instead, he was opting to have a conversation with himself.

An ounce of worry filled her at the sight of the young man's erratic behavior, but she pushed it away with an irritated snort. She had better things to do than worry about his mental well being, like hurrying up and knocking him unconscious, so she dashed forwards with her umbrella primed to strike.

When she was close enough, she reared up and swung her weapon straight into the side of his head with all of her might, sending the snowy-haired young man into yet another shipping container, which had more containers stacked on top of it. The sound of more bending metal defeating her momentarily as he bounced off of the thin metal wall like a wet rag.

Looks like I win again, Haise, she thought to herself condescendingly, taking a step towards her seemingly unconscious opponent.

She stopped dead in her tracks, however, when she heard his voice came from his disheveled heap of a body. "Blake… Must protect…"

He put both of his palms onto the concrete and pushed himself back up to his feet, shoulders slouched and head hanging low. "Everything precious has slipped through my fingers," he growled. Something bone white exploded from the small of his back and into the container behind him, leaving gigantic holes on the edges of it. Whatever it was pointed themselves right at her like the tentacles earlier, but these were much different. They were significantly larger than the ones before, covered with white plates and hooked, black spikes.

They looked distinctly like centipedes.

"Ms. Fueguchi, Irimi, Koma, the manager…" The woman with mismatched eyes found that said orbs were transfixed on her former partner as a white, glowing red substance began to creep outwards from the left side of his face. "I lost them not because of bad luck, or anything like that, but because I wasn't strong enough." The container that she had slammed him into earlier suddenly gave way under the weight of the other containers on top of it and folded. This caused them to slide off and land directly to Haise's right, which enveloped the corresponding side of his body with murky shadows.

"And so, if I have to give into you to make sure no one gets in the way of my happiness, then…" A loud cracking noise rang through the air as Neo watched him raise his head, revealing something that genuinely worried her. "I admit I need your help now…"

There, instead of his normal features, was a bone white mask that grew from literally out of nowhere and now took up half of his face. A big eye resided in the middle of the mask-its sclera jet black and its iris a brilliantly bright red-staring right at her. If that wasn't enough to unnerve her, she could see that he was smiling on the side of his face that wasn't blocked out by darkness. It was the same countenance she had seen him wear before. Wild and bloodthirsty.

"...Help me." His words suddenly took on a muffled, distorted tone, as if he were speaking underwater. "Help me…obliterate everyone and everything in my path." His hands reached up and clenched the sides of his face, black-tipped fingers digging into his skin. "Help me…take her on a date, scramble up her insides, and gobble her all up~."

**-Chapter End-**

Alright, so that's done. *ducks under desk to avoid gunfire*

Hey, I warned you about the cliffhanger this time on the update on my profile! So, you're not allowed to shoot me.

Wait, what? Most people don't check the profile for updates, you b-baka? Well, I messed up. *Ducks to avoid more gunfire*

Anyways, what do you guys think? FineChyna did a pretty good job, didn't she? And by the way, send any love you have towards her and sent all hate mail to me. I need the insults, like crazy these days.


	11. Poem Interlude: Conflict

Hey guys and welcome to yet another teaser for the next chapter in the form of a poem. I don't really know why I kept doing these, but sometimes I just get the poetry (or something resembling poetry) bug and I can't stop myself.

So, I wrote this without really having a structure to it, as I'm sure some of you'll notice. Just really put words on paper and this is what I got. Freeform poetry, I guess. Now, I just need a bongo playing in the background and I can complete my transformation into a complete hipster asshat, but that's more IRL stuff than anything else really.

Also, you've all had questions about Haise Sasaki and this'll help shed some light on his situation in Remnant. It'll also help build the mood for the next chapter, like, a lot. More than you know. Well, everyone other than FineChyna, my beta-reader, who gets to read bits of the next chapter long before anyone else…

I'm just going to leave you all on that…

**-Poetry Interlude: Conflicts-**

I found myself sitting all alone,  
In a world that would've let me rot.  
Been beat, beat, and beat some more,  
Yet, up high, do I keep my chin.

Reasons were few and unjustifiable,  
So I found my solace in pretty words.  
Words that could only help mask the pain,  
With escapism, based on other's grieving.

So, with hope, I looked to the sky one day,  
Found myself staring at a pretty little bird.  
Wondered idly what that little thing meant,  
Then, as quick as it came, it disappeared.

Every day, I found myself looking for it,  
Waiting to see what those wings would do.  
It puzzled me, every time my eyes found it,  
I wondered why it would hang around here.

This place of exiles, this land-bound island I took root in,  
Such ugly skies for a pretty thing to fly.  
Despite that, it circled this place, up so high.  
Never once indicating that it would descend.

One day, as my skin changed colors under forces out my control,  
That admirable little thing descended,  
To save a pitiful thing, such as myself.  
A laugh would've escaped, yet it didn't.

I myself fell that day, not from the sky, no.  
I fell deep in the clutches of love, or some semblance of it.  
Actually, now, I know it wasn't love at all.  
Just reliance, masked by the skipping of a beat.

From that day onward, the bird flew in my earthbound shadow.  
Watching me, perched up in that unreachable plane of existence.  
It stayed close, and yet, I knew it could leave,  
Anytime, anyplace, and I would be left where I began.

So, I yelled at the bird, a question plaguing my mind,  
And it decided to squawk back an answer.  
The same words I feared I would hear,  
Yet expected all the same, came out of her mouth.

After a moment or two, that bird flew away from me,  
And I wondered, in its brief absence, if it would ever come back.  
Despite my reliance, I didn't give chase as it flew.  
My eyes just watched in agony, as I cast out any sense of self.

I don't matter, not as much as that bird does.  
What I feel is irrelevant because, for a few fleeting moments,  
That bird allowed me to forget about my own incompetence,  
And allowed me to see something beautiful in this ugly island.

Then, as I resolved myself to that miserable fate,  
From the sky, I heard another bird call out to me.  
Its feathers shone as dark as the deepest night,  
And it watched me as it flew, unnerving red eyes tracing as it did.

It told me it saw the exchange and yet, asked me no questions.  
Only flew down and perched itself upon my shoulder,  
It whispered things into my ears, not things I wanted to hear,  
But knew were true from the depths of my heart and, for some reason, I found comfort.

That bird stayed with me and whispered those things for what seemed like hours,  
It told me it would return and help me with my problem,  
And for the first time, I didn't look to the sky for a pretty little thing,  
I looked for the bird that comforted me with those harsh whispers.

The next time the night bird showed itself,  
It told me of a way to fix my problem like it said it would,  
Told me of a way to negate those words and I listened.  
Not out of desperation, but because it continued to speak the truth.

So, out of preparation, I kept myself away from the beauty of my life.  
Soon, the distance became apparent and the beauty flew to me.  
I gave it a lie, the same that kept the tall trees from encroaching on me.  
The pretty little thing saw past it, I know it did, and yet it said nothing.

Days passed while I worked with the truthful bird to fix my crutch,  
For hours and hours, until my very soul felt tired.  
The pretty bird, after weeks, confronted me about it.  
Its wings flapped angrily and the resulting winds buffeted my skin before it flew away.

My body felt empty, my soul felt heavy, and yet I still did not give chase.  
Then, the truthful bird sunk its claws into me and took my motionless body away,  
To a faraway place with plenty of room for me to grow.  
It was beautiful and I did indeed grow, but those two things were still present.

While I grew in deceitful bliss, I met others and I grew close to them.  
Never as close as that pretty little thing, but close nonetheless.  
I lived my life there for years before fate spat in my face once more,  
Bringing me back to that land-bound island due to circumstance.

What I found was yet another oxymoron.  
Something I expected, yet shocked me all the same.  
I felt responsible for the incursion of that conflicting event.  
And so, I made it my responsibility to solve it as the blackbird before me.

More years went by and I eventually found that pretty little thing again.  
Again, it was just another spit in the face by circumstance.  
That pretty little thing became tainted, both inside and out.  
In my quest for redemption, I allowed that ugliness to taint me as well.

It was my fault after all…

**-Interlude End-**

Done! Got about five-thousand words done on the next chapter and that's my absolute minimum word count. So, unless I suddenly die from an onset of cholera, expect the next chapter within the span of one and a quarter months. 'Til next time people I'll most definitely hit with a cliffhanger next chapter!


	12. Chapter 10: Crying Lactose

Hey guys and welcome to the tenth chapter of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant. So, here it is, and no this isn't a joke! Not everything posted on April Fool's Day is a joke, y'know! This is one-hundred percent serious.

So, before I continue, I have to say that I got this pretty out quick. Less than three weeks maybe? I don't really know… That last poem I posted really mess things up on keeping track on the two month deadline.

It's almost exactly ten-thousand words long too. When FineChyna, my beta (for people who don't know), finished editing what I gave to her it was literally at nine-thousand nine-hundred ninety-nine words. I had to add in a couple words she missed, but other than that, another great job from her! She's laughing at you guys, by the way. Y'know, since she gets to read these long before any of you guys do since I give it to her in snippets, when I'm done with them.

Anyways, this is a great chapter for people who like the seemingly mindless violence that comes with Centipede-kun. It's chocked filled with him. Centipede-kun, I mean. If you're not a big fan of that kind of stuff and like the more mental aspect of Tokyo Ghoul, well, wait for the chapter after this because I'm planning on going deep into that shit.

Well, anyways, I love y'all for getting me to seven-hundred favorites! Closer and closer to that coveted thousand! Also look out for a Tokyo Ghoul/RWBY crossover from FineChyna in the future, I've read a part of it and heard its general premise, and it's going to be interesting for y'all to read, I promise. In a good way, of course.

SO, extremely long author's note aside, let's get this mother up and running, why don't we? Y'know after this SUPER-aggressive disclaimer. Sorry, I promise I'll mellow out next chapter.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

Why the fuck do I even try? It's not like any of you actually read these things anyways… I DON'T FUCKING OWN EITHER OF THESE SERIES!

**-Chapter 10: Crying Lactose-**

Neo flipped sideways, just barely missing one of her former partner's centipede-like tentacles. It hurtled past her, so fast she could barely even believe a living being could move at that speed. She grimaced when she saw the part of ground where she had been standing explode into such tiny pieces that it formed a dust cloud of pure concrete.

_You're still not done surprising me, are you, Haise?_ Neo mused inwardly, leaning her body diagonally to dodge the other spiny appendage trying to turn her into pulp. This one could stand to be a lot less murderous, but beggars can't be choosers, after all.

The girl quickly found that her opponent's newly upgraded attacks were extremely easy to read, but, with the speed they were moving at, she also found keeping up to be rather difficult. Every time one of them even twitched, Neo had to force all of her attention onto it like it was already being shot towards her. It was truly an exhilarating experience for someone like her.

Stepping to the left to dodge an incoming right attack, Neo immediately shifted her direction of movement back towards the opposite direction, flipping over the protrusion she just dodged. She jumped just in time-fast as she was, she just barely avoided being hit by the other. Right as her feet touched the ground, her eyes were suddenly filled with a black and white blur before a powerful force-a force that felt a lot like a fist-slammed right into the center of her chest, knocking all the air out of her lungs.

The blow had enough energy behind it to send her flying backwards, which was exactly what her body did, but not even a second into her flight, another force hit her back into the opposite direction. Pain radiating throughout her entire body, Neo shook herself to action and teleported out of the way of any more strikes.

Not being able to focus on a single place, she ended up only a few feet from where she was first hit, up on a nearby storage container. The moment she got her bearings back, her mismatched eyes fixated back onto her crazed former partner, who was panting heavily as if he expended a lot of energy.

_I'm guessing that form takes up energy for him to use, _she thought to herself as she fixed the pace of her own breathing. _Good, that just means-_

Before she could finish that line of thought, Haise suddenly shifted to the left and disappeared from sight completely.

_What the-_ She thought bewilderedly, but a burst of wind prompted her to turn to her left, just to find a familiar blur standing next to her with his tentacles primed to strike. _Crap,_ she cursed to herself, lifting her umbrella up and opening it.

The tri-colored girl went flying almost immediately. As she soared through the air, she bitterly wondered how exactly the two of them reached this point.

* * *

Neo could remember the first day she met the dark-haired young man she was currently fighting vividly. Truth be told, though she'd probably never actually tell it to anyone, it was one of the few days from her childhood that she truly did care to remember. Not because she thought it to be a good memory, not even because she thought it a bad one, but because it was the day she came across the one person in the world who seemed to have it worse than her.

She lived at that damned orphanage ever since her parents died, which meant that almost every single memory she had as a child took place in a setting that only reminded her of how truly alone she was. It was a place where everyone other than her came and went frequently. The few friends she made early on were adopted and shipped off to make the memories she'd never be able to. The only parental figure in her life, the caretaker that had been assigned to care of her when she was little, was fired and replaced by one that would never have the same impact.

To be forced to watch everyone come into her life and then eventually leave her behind, over and over again, eventually made her so numb that she truly started to believe that no one in the world could've had it worse than she did.

That was the case for years. All the while, Neo kept anyone and everyone from approaching her by making it seem like she thought herself better than everyone, which amounted to be nothing more than a childhood delusion-a delusion that was fueled by all of the hardships she had to live through. All of that changed when Haise first showed up at the orphanage, however.

At first, she didn't think much of anything from the dark-haired boy. She thought him to be nothing more than a carbon copy of the other children who came in at later stages of their childhood, when they were old enough to really remember losing their parents. This assumption that was based off previous her experiences with the type. Neo assumed that he was probably going to be one of three things: either he was someone who would try and hide his sorrow with a deceitful mask of faux cheeriness, someone who used the death of their loved ones to justify his overly aggressive behavior, or someone who took the loss harshly and sequestered himself away from the rest of the world in response.

She soon found her answer when she found him sitting in a corner away from the other children, reading an extremely thick book. At the time, she thought that was going to be the last time she'd even spare a glance at the boy, but she was dead wrong.

Not a week later, she saw him walking back from recess with multiple bruises on his legs and arms. The caretakers asked the boy who had given him them, but he refused to answer, giving some flimsy excuse of him falling down instead. He did so with the most sickeningly sweet smile Neo had ever seen anyone use. This made the girl curious, so she decided to follow him around for a day. She found the answer she was looking for in less than a hour.

She saw him getting beaten up by some other boys-boys who just so happened to fall into that second category she listed earlier, boys who lashed out violently at anyone who would dare cross their paths. From what she could gather at the time, they were attacking only because they thought the new boy was trying to show them up by reading those big books of his. He tried to deny their accusation, but they either weren't listening or just didn't care, and continued to whale on him.

It was a pitiful sight to say the least, but not one part of her wanted to go and help him. Instead, she opted to sit back and see how the boy would react to the beating. What she was presented with surprised her to no end.

No matter how much or how hard the group hit him, not a single tear leaked from his eyes. The boy just lay there, curled up in a ball, taking each and every one of their hits without reacting. When the boys finished releasing their unjustified anger on him, he simply picked himself up off the ground, brushed the dirt off of his clothes, and went to read some more. It was almost as if the beating never happened to begin with.

Now harboring a good amount of curiosity towards the boy, Neo continued to watch him for days. She found that the same cycle happened time and time again. The only thing that would ever change was the book he would go to read afterwards.

Despite all she found out during those days of secret surveillance, Neo kept to her position on the sidelines for weeks. She only decided to act when she found something that made her curiosity with the boy flow over. She found the books he would always return to after the beatings, took one of the more ragged-looking ones back to her room and skimmed through its contents. Even at that age, she could tell that it wasn't something someone their age should be reading at all, much less at the frequency the condition of the book implied.

At that moment, the girl moved to help him. Not because she genuinely cared about his well being, but because she actually found his life to be quite pitiable, even after comparing it to her own, yet somehow he remained steadfast in his ways. One that she could only describe with two words-sickly sweet.

Haise continued to treat anyone who approached him kindly, despite his introverted personality, and that was when she noticed something that intrigued her greatly. Beyond the weak-bodied and weak-willed exterior he seemed to possess, her childhood self saw that there was a strength in him. One that continued to persevere, even with the trials that were forced onto his shoulders.

Neo wanted to see more of it. She wanted to test that strength's limits. She wanted to see if she could tap into that strength and make something of the boy who got beaten up each and every day.

That was the reality behind their first meeting. She couldn't claim to know the light Haise saw it in, especially now after everything happened after, but she knew that there was once a part of him that thought back to that day and remembered a happy memory, and not what it actually was.

When she reached out to him on that day, she didn't do so as a lonely girl trying to reach out to a lonely boy. At that time, she was nothing more than a little girl who found a new toy to play with.

* * *

After being hit by her former partner's attack, Neo shifted her body weight mid-air and flipped herself in a way that would ensure she would land on her feet upon landing. The undersides of her boots let out a loud screeching noise as the pieces of plastic helped her skid to a stop.

When she was no longer sliding on pure concrete like it was ice, her mismatched eyes darted around her new surroundings, looking for any sign of the rampaging form of whatever monster Haise had turned himself into.

What even was that? Neo asked herself as scanned, a bitter smirk forming on her lips when she felt her heartbeat quicken like it never had before. Ah, so many surprises, so little time.

Rapid footsteps hitting against metal drew her attention. When she turned to look at where it was coming from, she saw him. There, sitting crouched on top of a storage crate, was the snowy-haired young man she was searching for.

"**Oh, there you are,**" Haise called out to her, his tone of voice mocking in nature. He suddenly tilted his head to the side, revealing what shadows hid from view earlier. The bloodthirsty smile that Neo had seen him sporting earlier wasn't actually a full one that went ear-to-ear like she expected. No, a much more chilling sight was what greeted her. "**I actually thought that you tried to do what you did all those years ago and sneak away before we were able to finish our game.**" Instead of a full upward turn of his lips, she found that the right half of his mouth was turned downwards in a deep frown. The corresponding eye was glazed, flat, and pure white, no pupil or iris to be seen. "**Don't you remember?**" A laugh escaped his mouth. "**I waited…and waited…and…wait…waited…**"

The sudden trail off confused Neo. She wondered what caused it, but she got her answer less than a second later. Haise's black-tipped fingers suddenly wrapped themselves around his temples, ruffling his snow-white hair as he let out a pained growl.

"**What the…**" she could hear him mumble to himself, the conflicting countenance on his face becoming a full grimace. "**No…no, no, no, no,**" he repeated that word over and over, his body starting to tremble uncontrollably. "**Remember?**" The words slipped from his lips, shaky as his body. "**No, no, it isn't mine!**" He shook his head so violently that he rocked from side to side. "**Zero-absolutely none of it belongs to me!**"

Then, as if a switch was flipped in his head, his hands fell from their previous positions and the lone eye that sat right in the center of that mask refocused itself on to Neo.

"**Must focus on goal…**" Haise muttered to himself, preparing to pounce on her, digging his black-tipped fingers into the metal under him as he did so. "**...Must save her…**" Neo, not wanting to be caught off guard by an attack, brought her umbrella up and pointed its tip directly at the being she deemed to be nothing more than a rampaging monster. Her body was shaking slightly, with what she believed to be anticipation. "**...Must obliterate!**"

Haise did as she expected and pounced directly at her at a nearly untraceable speed, shooting one centipede-like protrusion at her. Neo dodged it by flipping forwards, having every intention of getting in close to him and striking at the young man's more vital areas.

Already knowing that a hit to the groin probably wasn't going to help her now, she swung for his head with all of her might, only to hit nothing but air as he ducked under the swing. Two hands latched themselves onto her shoulders with a painfully strong grip as she was pushed to the ground.

Looking up to see what knocked her down, Neo found herself staring at the feral expression Haise had plastered on his face. A lone crimson-colored iris stared into her own mismatched eyes, looking like nothing else so much as a drop of blood in a pool of ink.

* * *

Neo remembered very little of her childhood before Haise came into her life, but even then, she only bothered to remember a few bits and pieces of a couple select ones. Like the time where she told him her intentions of eventually leaving the orphanage.

A couple of months after she first helped him with his bully problem, Neo went looking for the dark-haired boy after he failed to show up to their daily meetup. She found him sitting under the bare branches of a tree that sat near the very edge of the orphanage, staring off into space with an expression that looked could only be described as lonely.

"Hey, Neopolitan," he called out to her, despite the fact that he was looking in the complete opposite direction as to where she was standing. "Sorry about not showing up earlier." The dark-haired bookworm didn't spare a glance at her as he added, "I just needed some space to think about a few things."

"Don't worry about it, I don't need your sorry butt around me at all times," she reassured him in her usual mocking manner, a style of speaking that he adjusted to faster than she expected. "So, what are you thinking about that's got you so down?" she asked, all the while hoping her voice didn't show as much confusion as she felt.

"Was it that obvious?" The question slipped from a pair of upturned lips, yet there was zero positive emotion behind it. Choosing to not give a verbal answer, she moved to sit next to him and wait for him to continue instead. She didn't have to wait long-he opened his mouth not a second after she plopped herself down next to him. "Hey, tell me," he began, momentarily glancing over at her before returning his gaze out in front of him. "Do you ever think about leaving this place?"

"Other than all the time?" she answered, a light hint of amusement to her voice, not being able to stop herself from saying it.

He visibly frowned at that response and stated, his voice remaining uncharacteristically solemn as he spoke, "I'm trying to be serious here, Neo."

"I can tell," the truth-colored girl replied, a little bit less of a mocking undertone in her voice. "It's not everyday one bears witness to a serious Haise Sasaki, after all." This elicited a half-hearted glare from him. Neo gave a tired sigh and a serious answer, albeit a begrudging one. "Alright, fine, I'll give you an actual answer."

She took in a deep breath, contemplated the words she wanted to say and then began. "What I told you earlier was pretty much the truth," she stated, her mismatched eyes finding themselves being pointed in any direction that wasn't towards him. "There really isn't a time where I don't think about leaving this place," she continued, her tone becoming a little more solemn. "But unfortunately, I think my promise to you is going to keep me tied down to this place for a little while longer."

"Really…?" When Neo heard Haise's response to that statement, she immediately turned her attention back onto him and what she found, she couldn't say she liked all too much. He was looking at her with sadness and...was that guilt?

"Hey, no need to get so sad," she muttered, averting her gaze from him once more. A bit of guilt grew inside of her. "I never said I actually had a problem with it."

"Even then-" She heard him begin to say, but she refused to let him finish that ridiculously selfless train of thought.

"I said it was fine," she repeated, but more emphatically, making sure that she got her point across to him.

In response, he simply hung his head so that his bangs covered his face with shadows. After that, not a single word escaped from his lips, leaving them in an uncomfortable silence.

She eventually came to leave the dark-haired boy sitting there by that tree, all alone. Something she now regretted doing in retrospect, as it probably reinforced the idea of her leaving him in his head, but at the time, she didn't know how much that simple act affected him. She didn't even realize it up until recently, when she was forced to think back to it due to Haise's sudden want to departure from their group. That prompted her to realize another thing upon looking back on those memories and it was that, in the end, it was probably just another straw that broke the camel's back.

* * *

Neo couldn't help but focus on the single, Grimm-like eye that belonged to her former partner as it stared down at her. The crimson iris was filled with a wildness that she'd only ever seen in the creatures the eye reminded her so much of.

An eternity seemed to pass her by as she gazed at the orb, before finally being broken from her reverie by distorted giggling. Upon freeing herself from the fogs of her own mind, she found that Haise's face was only inches away from her own. His once soft, baby-faced features were marred by both the bone white mask that covered a quarter of his face, and the toothy smile that seemed to take up the rest of it.

"**Oh, I can't wait to sink my teeth into you.**" The words slipped from his mouth in a way that eerily reminded her of herself. "**You don't know how sick and tired I am of eating rotten-tasting meat,**" he purred, leaning even closer.

Their faces were probably only centimeters apart when Haise froze. Neo felt one of his hands release its grip on her left arm. Her eyes instinctively shot down towards said appendage and found that his hand was slowly approaching her face.

A shiver ran down her spine when she felt his cold fingers make contact with her cheek. However. unlike the almost painfully rough grip he had had on her arm, the way he touched her cheek was surprisingly soft. Almost feather soft.

"**Dammit, why…?**" The snowy-haired version of her former partner asked, pulling his hand away, prompting Neo to turn her attention back onto his face. The toothy smile was no longer present, instead replaced with that deep frown from earlier. "**Why, why, why, why, why, why…?**"

The moment her former partner released his grip on her arm, the tri-colored woman didn't waste any time in getting him off of her.

Using her newly freed arm, Neo sent an elbow right into the exposed portion of Haise's face with all of the force she could muster, knocking the crazed young man off of her almost instantly. Not wanting to be anywhere near him as of the moment, her mismatched eyes began frantically searching for somewhere to teleport to.

_There!_ she exclaimed to herself when she finally found it.

Springing into action, she concentrated on the location and she soon found herself standing on top of a nearby tower crane's jib. Her hands soon found their way onto her knees as she panted in and out heavily.

Once she finally managed to regain her breath, Neo stood up straight and attempted to use her elevated position to find her opponent. Before she could even begin, she was stopped by a loud, metallic clang followed by a sudden series of violent vibrations that shook the metal under her. _What the-_ the professional criminal thought, searching for the cause of the sudden shaking. She found it almost immediately.

There, running up the side of the crane's tower at a speed she didn't even think physically possible with his centipede-like appendages trailing behind him, was none other than the man she was looking for.

_Shit, how did he find me so quickly?_ Neo cursed to herself, preparing to teleport away. She stopped herself when she noticed the young man suddenly stab his centipede-like tentacles into the metal of the crane and screech to a stop as he reached the operator's cabin. _What is he-?_

Her former partner suddenly launched himself towards her position, which prompted the tri-colored to flip backwards out of instinct alone as he slipped between the rungs of the crane. Neo felt a gust of air hit her back as she reached the midway point of the flip.

Assuming that it was probably Haise, she turned on her heel upon landing so that she was facing the opposite direction. She found aforementioned young man flipping himself forwards in mid-air so that he was upside down facing her direction. He then sent both of his tentacles hurtling her way, prompting her to jump back to avoid getting cleaved in half.

Probably to avoid flying off into the air, he kept his tentacles planted in the metal of the crane, using them as an anchor as he used the momentum he built up to hook himself onto the tip of the crane's jib with his back facing her. The landing causing even more vibrations to run through the crane.

"**Hey, Neo, do you wanna know something interesting?**" The monstrous young man asked, glancing over his shoulder at her. That frown from earlier was still present on his lips. "**It still hurts, you know…**" One of his hands clenched at the flesh of his stomach while the other was raised up to chin-level. He cracked a finger under his thumb. "**...The place where you stabbed me.**"

"I would definitely hope so," the professional criminal shot back, with all of her usual confidence. Her legs continued to shake under her in anticipation of what was to come. Her breathing was ragged due all of her previous physical exertion. "Wouldn't want you forgetting all about me, now would I?"

Another smirk appeared on Haise's lips in response to the statement. Less than a second later, he launched one of his protrusions at Neo. She flipped to the right and just barely landed her feet on the edge of the crane's jib.

As she flipped, her former partner charged straight at her with his other tentacle primed to strike. He aimed a strike at her head, but Neo leaned her body out of the way, just barely miss getting decapitated. Deciding that it was probably best to keep her distance from him, especially after what happened earlier, she took a step towards Haise and hit him in the side of the head with her umbrella, before immediately jumping back out of the way.

The attack made Haise recoil backwards, but other than that, it made no physical indication of affecting him in the slightest, as he returned to the offensive almost immediately.

Wildly, and without any sort of pattern to it, he sent attack after attack Neo's way, which she made sure to dodge. All the while, she did her best to keep her footing on the crane as every attack forced her to teeter on the edge of falling to the ground below her. Suddenly, Haise full-out launched himself at her, hurtling through the air while launching another tentacle at her. Seeing no other option, the tri-colored woman decided to slip in between the rungs of the jib under her and stop her descent to the ground by catching a metal rung with the handle of her umbrella.

Now hanging several feet in the air by her umbrella, Neo frantically began pulling herself back up so that she wasn't easy prey for her crazed adversary, who was doing as he did earlier and was using his tentacles as a grappling hook to curve back towards her direction. _Come on…_ she thought as she pulled, a rare sense of panic rising inside her as the seconds passed as slow hours.

Neo felt another gust of air pass by under her as she finally pulled herself up into the very center of the crane's jib. Once again assuming that it was Haise, she turned glanced over her shoulder in the direction the air was going in and found that her former partner had hooked a tentacle on the very end of the crane's trolley.

Unlike last time, however, he wasn't using his momentum to swing towards he. He was using it to sling himself towards the the crane's mast.

The snowy-haired monster slammed into it with enough force to shake the entire structure. Soon enough, the sound of metal screeching against metal deafened Neo as she felt the jib of the crane begin to tilt dramatically towards its tip.

_Holy-_ was all she had time to think before the jib fell down to the concrete ground, taking her with it.

* * *

During the weeks that followed the conversation she had with Haise under that tree, Neo found that any and all interactions with her meek companion became increasingly harder and harder to come by. Normally, he would meet up with her after classes ended, as he was very adamant about wanting her to actually pay attention during class, which she reluctantly agreed to as it was the only thing he was ever actually adamant about. However, that all changed when he started to disappear after the teacher dismissed them.

The first day, she didn't think much of it, as he eventually reappeared again after about a half hour. She just assumed that the boy was busy doing something that didn't concern her. She tried asking him about it, but all she got back in response was the same sickly-sweet runaround he gave the teachers when they asked about his bruises. Of course, he probably had no idea that she was able to recognize it, as he didn't know she was watching him at the time. Since that was the way she wanted to keep it, she played along with it for the time being.

Then, the same thing happened the next day, and the day after that. The same scenario played over and over again for a full week before there was finally a change in the script, but it wasn't a change she liked all that much, for very obvious reasons. Instead of disappearing for a half hour, Haise was gone for a full hour, and it didn't even stop there! About two weeks since it first started happening, that amount of time doubled, and he started disappearing for two hours.

Now, all of that would've been fine if he actually interacted with her at all when she did see him, but the simple fact was that he didn't. Whenever she actually managed to spend any time with him, it was almost as if she was talking with a robot. He seemed to be completely disinterested in what she had to tell him and only ever spoke when spoken directly to. To make a long story short, it frustrated her to no end, and eventually that frustration morphed into resentment.

At the time, her ten year old self believed it to be a form of retaliation for what happened under that tree. A fact she would've been fine with if he wasn't so blatantly trying to distance himself from her because of it.

One day, Neo finally let her frustrations known to the boy, but all she got back was the same answer she got last time she asked. For some reason, all of her composure slipped away, and before she realized what she was doing, the palm of her hand met with his cheek. Surprisingly enough, he didn't even flinch at the strike. He simply turned his head to look at her after recovering from the initial strike. His usually life-filled eyes adopted the same heavy feel they had during the conversation that started everything.

Upon seeing this, Neo proceeded to ask him what he was doing again. Every part of her hoped that he wouldn't give her that same lie. Her heart sank when she heard him utter his answer, and at that moment, all of the emotion that was welling up inside her took control and she ran, leaving him standing there with a red handprint on his cheek.

To hear him flat out lie to her face, even after she gave him the opportunity to rescind it… It actually hurt. It hurt more than she ever expected it to.

What that was… The entirety of what she just did… It was more than just her trying to get answers. Neo knew the bookworm, despite all of his social ineptness, understood that much. She was giving him a choice, and that was his answer.

Knowing him and his strange word-loving ways, Haise would probably say that the better word for it would be 'ultimatum'. She'd gladly concede that point to him. Mainly because he was right. She really didn't give him much other choice in the situation and she regretted that, even back then, and that regret plagued her for a while. Not enough that it made her forsake her childish pride, but there were a couple nights where she would lie awake contemplating what would've happened if she handled things differently, especially when she caught wind of his apparent departure from the orphanage.

It felt like her entire world was about to fall apart when she heard that news. She went to go confront him about it almost immediately afterwards. For what reason, she didn't know. Truth be told, Neo didn't really know what she would have said to him if they saw one another that day. A part of her wanted to channel all of her anger and resentment towards him into a speech that was meant to tear down everything he held dear, but another part of her wanted to pour every ounce of pent up emotion she had inside her into some impassioned, admittedly melodramatic plea to get him to stay.

In the end, she'd never have the chance to figure that out. Haise and almost everything he owned was gone by the time she went to go see him. The cycle that she hated so much played itself over again and ripped something important to her away, leaving her with only resentment.

Resentment towards… everything.

Towards her deceased parents for starting the cycle. Towards the orphanage she was forced to live in for allowing it a base to sustain itself. Towards the whole world for allowing such things to happen. Towards Haise Sasaki for wriggling his way into her heart, only to rip it out by willingly taking a part in it. Towards herself for fooling herself into thinking that sickly-sweet little boy would be any different.

And so, Neo ran, far away from that place with no plan or set goal in her mind. She just wanted to be rid of the place that kept taking so much from her.

* * *

The first thing that became apparent to Neo when the painfully strong ringing in her head finally subsided was pain. An extremely fiery pain that ran throughout her entire body.

Forcing open the eyes she clenched shut in response to the pain, Neo looked around and found herself lying inside the metal jib, which was currently leaning against the tower portion of the crane, backend first.

_Thank everything for aura,_ the tri-colored woman thought, trying to force herself up into a sitting position. She was quickly forced to stop when she felt something pinning the majority of her left arm down to the ground under her. Instinctively, she glanced over to see what was restricting her movement and found that it was stuck in between two metal rungs of the crane's peak, which somehow got around her arm before the impact twisted them into a vice keeping her in place. _Aw, you've got to be kidding-_ That train of thought skid to a halt when she both heard and felt something slam into the top of the jib. Turning her gaze towards it, she found something that made her curse. _Shit!_

There, perched up at the top of the jib and staring directly at her with his one working eye, was one Haise Sasaki, or rather, the monster that wore his skin. The Grimm-like monstrosity was holding onto to what was very clearly the last remaining pieces of the top half of the jib, before something tore it clean off.

The sight caused panic to swell up inside her. Neo immediately began trying to free her arm from its confines, but unfortunately, her struggles didn't get her anywhere. Haise launched himself down the insides of the jib and towards her trapped form before she could even get her trapped limb to move an inch.

The very bones in her body vibrated as he impacted with the ground around her. "**That's much better,**" Haise sneered mockingly, looming over her. He out an equally mocking laugh as he grabbed onto the metal rungs surrounding them, leaning in so that their faces were once again inches apart. "**C'mon, try flying away now, little birdy.**"

Haise continued to inch closer and closer to Neo, before suddenly grabbing her chin and forcibly tilting her head up, exposing her neck. "**The last thing a centipede wants is a meal that doesn't struggle, after all.**" Neo watched helplessly as her former partner leaned his head so that his mouth was positioned directly in front of her bare throat. His cold breath tickled her exposed skin as he spoke in a deceitfully soft voice. "**Tell me, have you ever seen a centipede eat something before?**"

The lone black eye stared down at Neo hungrily, sending an unfamiliar chill down her spine like a trickle of raindrops. "**It's actually quite the gruesome sight to behold,**" Haise continued, in the same infuriatingly soft tone. "**It sinks its fangs into its prey and waits until its venom completely paralyzes it.**" The professional criminal flinched as she felt his other hand grasp her shoulder roughly, digging in with cold, bony fingers. "**And then it wraps its legs around the prey, and tears and tears and tears and tears and tears at the meat until there's nothing left.**"

"**It hurts like you wouldn't believe…**" A high-pitched, distorted giggle clawed its way from his throat. "…**I should know. I've had one in my ear, after all.**" Neo's eyes widened in shock and confusion.

Before she could even question what her partner meant by that, Haise opened his mouth wide and slowly brought it to her throat. _Damn, I don't think I have enough aura left to block this!_ Neo cursed to herself, right before an explosion rocked the jib that enclosed the two of them. The aftershocks knocked the crazed beast standing over her off-balance. _My arm!_ The young woman felt the pressure on her arm suddenly lighten, which allowed her enough room to pull said appendage out of its trap.

Turning her head over to where the blast originated from, Neo found herself staring at the familiar figure of a man in a gaudy three-piece suit standing in the open side door of a bullhead, cane pointed directly in her former partner's direction. "Sorry about intruding right as you two were about to get intimate, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take her off your hands for the moment," the man said condescendingly, pulling the trigger of his weapon. This prompted Neo to focus her attention onto the spot of ground next to Roman and teleport to it, right as the explosive was let loose from the cane.

The professional criminal turned her head towards the wreck of the jib right in time to see her former partner get slammed in the face with said explosive. The resulting explosion encompassing the young man completely in an instant. Despite all that happened, she felt the familiar pang of worry hit her heart at the sight, but she wasn't able to confirm his condition as the bullhead began to pull away almost immediately after it hit.

_Haise…_ Neo thought to herself as she watched the location where he once stood move farther and farther away.

* * *

"Blake!" Blake could only blink in confusion as she heard her voice being called out. She immediately turned her head towards where the voice came from and Ruby running towards her, the weird orange-haired girl from a couple days back in tow. "Hey, are you alright?!"

"R-Ruby?" Blake stuttered, panting heavily as her friend and fellow teammate ran up to her. Fighting Torchwick had taken a lot out of her. Truthfully, she underestimated the man's abilities and nearly lost because of it. The only real reason she managed to win was because the crane suddenly collapsing had distracted him long enough for her to get a decent hit in. One that made him retreat into the safety of a bullhead almost immediately afterwards. "What… What are you doing here?"

"Finding you, silly!" Ruby exclaimed in an uncharacteristically stern tone that oddly reminded Blake of her mother. "Do you know how long we've been looking for you and Kaneki?" The smaller girl put her hands on her hips and added, "Do you know how worried the two of you made us when you up and disappeared like that?"

"Yes, you two made Ruby very worried," the orange-haired girl, Penny, butted in suddenly. "She wouldn't stop muttering your names under her breath the entire time we were running here."

This earned the strange girl a betrayed glare from Ruby. "Sorry about that," Blake offered her leader, flashing her younger a bashful smile. "After all that happened…" she trailed off to find the perfect words to describe what happened over the past couple days. "… I needed some space to sort out a couple of things out and I ended up dragging Kaneki into it by accident."

Ruby sighed in relief. "You don't have to explain yourself to me," she replied with an understanding smile. "I'm really just happy to see that you're alright." Blake couldn't stop herself from smiling at her leader's admission. "So, what happened to Kaneki anyways?"

Blake's eyes reflexively widened at the mention of her companion's name, just then remembering that he was probably still fighting the tri-colored woman from before. "He should still be fighting that woman from the settlement," she explained to her teammate. "You know, the one who took you all hostage after Kaneki and I fell out of the bullhead."

"What?!" Ruby cried, her silver eyes widening as the worry in her voice piqued. "Why didn't you say so earlier! We need to-"

Almost as if it was waiting for its cue, the sound of an explosion rang out through the air, making all three of the girls jump in shock. Blake turned towards the source of the sound and found that it originated from the fallen crane from earlier. From out of the sounds of destruction that continuously emanated from that direction, she heard something that made her heart still in her chest. Something she hoped was only audible because of her naturally superior sense of hearing, and wasn't just loud enough for everyone to hear.

"**AGGGGGGHHHHHH!**"

That voice… It was shrill, and sounded as if it was trying to convey a pain that she could never hope to comprehend without experiencing it for herself. But most importantly to her, it sounded like Kaneki.

"**FUCK FUCK FUCK!**" Blake could only listen helplessly to her friend's pain-induced screams. Her body screamed for her to go and help him, but the shock of it all made her feel as though her bones had been replaced with lead. "**It burns-my head, no everything it feels like-agh, why won't it stop?!**"

"**I can't stop here…**" Blake's heart sank when she heard Kaneki's voice suddenly weaken. "**I need to…Blake, I need to save her save her save her save her-Blake!**"

"Blake!" The sound of another voice calling out her name broke the bookworm from her fixation and prompted her to turn her towards where it came from, finding a worried-looking Ruby and an extremely confused Penny. "Are you alright?" Her young leader asked worriedly. "You've been-"

"It's Kaneki." The words slipped from Blake's already hanging mouth without her usual calm; instead, her voice was filled with worry for the wellbeing of her friend. "He's-"

"Pardon me. I don't mean to be rude, but I think we have bigger problems," Penny cut her off whilst pointing up towards the sky. This prompted the two members of team RWBY to turn their heads in that direction to find a group of three bullheads approaching them.

_They must be here to cover that guy's escape,_ Blake thought to herself, instinctively looking around for a place to take cover. _They're probably going to start opening fire on us. I need to get to cover before-_

Bullet fire cut Blake's train of thought short. Her amber eyes widened upon hearing the noise and she flinched, fully expecting to be riddled full of holes, but suddenly, the flashes of death coming out of the bullhead's machine guns were stopped. A group of swords had appeared from out of nowhere, circling rapidly in front of her like some sort of overly-ironic shield as they blocked every bullet.

"Don't you worry, Ruby and Ruby's friend, Blake," Penny said, prompting the two to turn towards her. "I'll take care of them." What they found was a Penny with swords that flew around her almost as if she was controlling them through some form of telekinesis. What she said next, she said with a confident smile and military-like salute that were both directed towards Blake's crimson-clad leader. "I'm combat ready, after all."

With that, orange-haired girl sent several of those swords directly into the leading bullhead's front and then pulled both her arms back, making it seem like she was pulling on some string that wasn't visible to the human eye. Aforementioned bullhead swerved side to side in response, before finally slamming directly into the bullhead behind it as it passed. The collision knocked the two transports out of the air and onto the ground almost immediately.

"Whoa," Blake and Ruby said in unison.

Turning her attention onto the last remaining bullhead, which was already starting to pull away, Penny pointed the tips of the floating swords at it, probably in an attempt to do to it what she did the other two ships. However, before she could do so, a black blur slammed right into the cockpit.

Already knowing who it was, thanks to the long objects that were coming out of his back, Blake felt a wave of relief run through her at the knowledge her friend wasn't debilitatingly injured. That relief, however, only lasted until the moment she saw what Kaneki was doing. He used his 'kagune' as he called it, though they looked much bigger and much spikier than she remembered, to tear off the cockpit's shielding like it was a wet piece of paper. The metal fell through the air as he jumped inside.

The cat-eared faunus was able to pick up on what was going on inside the ship. What she heard made her blood freeze almost instantly.

It was screaming. Frantic and hauntingly agonized screaming that definitely didn't belong to Kaneki; screaming that soon died and was replaced with the very faint sound of chewing. As she heard those noises, the bullhead neared the ground, swerving back and forth uncontrollably, before finally slamming into the ground side-first. The resulting impact caused the concrete it landed on to break apart as it ground to a halt.

"Blake…" Ruby called out to her suddenly, immediately breaking the older girl's fixation on the downed vehicle. "...Was that…?"

"Yeah," Blake answered, already knowing the question her leader was going to ask.

"You don't think he'd…"

"I…" At that moment, memories of his pained wailing ran through Blake's head. "… I don't know."

Ruby soon got her answer. A pale, black-nailed hand emerged from the cockpit, soon followed by a head of snow-white hair, angled in a way that made it impossible for anyone to see the face underneath as the half-ghoul climbed out of the transport's inner workings.

Suddenly, Kaneki exploded from out of the cockpit and landed on to the ground in front of them, crouched down on all fours so that the entirety of his front was out of sight. That, however, didn't stop Blake from noticing the metallic smell that emanated him. It was so overpowering that she almost didn't notice the faint burning smell that lingered in the air.

"**Ah, it's no good,**" Kaneki muttered, shaking his downturned head violently. His voice came out muffled, as if he was speaking directly into the surface of a pillow. "**It's no good, I say.**"

"Kaneki…" Blake tried to force down the lump that suddenly grew in her throat as she called out to her teammate, who ceased all shaking of his head the moment after she managed to do so. "… Are you alright?"

"**Am I alright?**" Kaneki parroted disbelievingly, reaching his hands up to his hidden face. "**I don't really know…**" At that moment, he straightened up, looked up from the ground, and stared directly at the cat-eared faunus, revealing his once hidden face to the world. Blake could only gasp at what she saw. "**I can't feel any-everything's just gone so numb…I can barely even move my mouth.**"

_Oh my… what in the world happened?_ Blake asked herself, the sight of her companion's condition leaving her completely speechless.

The almost deathly pale face that she had gotten so familiar with-the same one that made a tinge of warmth spike in her heart every time she saw it-was almost completely scorched. It almost looked as though someone had taken a piece of charcoal and smeared it everywhere other than the top left portion his face, which only emphasized the milky white mask- a mask set with a single black and red eye-that covered it. If it weren't for the charred edges of bone that poked out from where his cheekbones and jawline should have been, that's exactly what she would've thought happened.

The sight made bile rise up from Blake's throat, which was only enhanced when she realized that the burned smell she'd picked up had been her teammate's skin. She tried to force it down, but her amber eyes caught notice of something else, something that forced her to swallow hard to avoid vomiting.

At that moment, several thin, black strands suddenly emerged from the charred remnants of Kaneki's face and began laying themselves over the damaged areas. The bookworm could only watch on in horror as the fibers rapidly connected to one another and began forming layers of muscle tissue over the damaged areas.

"Ruby, is that the Kaneki person you were talking about earlier?" Blake heard Penny ask in a low whisper, but the Faunus remained focused on her companion as his face continued to heal inch by inch.

"Y-yeah," the young team leader answered tentatively, in an equally low whisper. "That's him."

"Then, could you please explain to me how he's able to do that?"

"Uh…" Ruby began, but paused when a familiar, hoarse chuckle rang through air. "…I'll be sure to explain it to you later."

"**How?**" A set of giggles escaped from the half ghoul as his hands transitioned further up his face and covered the only portion that wasn't finished healing-the top right part of his face. "**Ha, that's actually a good question,**" he continued in his delirium, standing up and revealing the rest of his body, which was covered with a liquid that reflected the fading light of dusk despite its dark crimson color. "**Maybe you should ask whoever was flying that bullhead, I think they may know.**"

Suddenly, the artificially-made half ghoul lowered his hands from the still-burned portion of his face and grinned, while suddenly focusing his lone eye directly towards Blake's right. Exactly where Penny was standing.

Another round of giggles rang through the air. The orange-haired girl simply tilted her head quizzically in response. "**Unfortunately, I don't think that he's going to be enough,**" Kaneki sneered, two centipede-like protrusions slipping out from the small of his back and and landing, twitching, on the ground. "**You wouldn't mind helping me out with that...right?**"

"Kaneki," Blake said, realizing that the situation needed defusing, making sure to keep her voice level and calm as she spoke. "You need to calm down." There was no response, so she called out to him in a louder voice. "Kaneki! You need to calm down!"

"Blake's right!" Ruby yelled as well, her voice sounding like it belonged to someone much older than her age let on. "I know that you might be hungry and that you're in pain, but you need to remember that we're all friends here!"

"Yes, I suggest you listen to Blake and Ruby," Penny chimed in, her demeanor not changing despite the tension of situation. "You may be Ruby's friend, but if you attempt to hurt either of them, I'll be forced to-"

Before the orange-haired girl could finish her warning, Kaneki suddenly burst forward at a speed that Blake could barely even track with her eyes, stopping right in front of Penny. He lashed out at aforementioned girl with one of his centipede-like tentacles, with very obvious killing intent, but suddenly, a group of swords intercepted the incoming kagune as it approached her head.

Growling in frustration, the crazed half ghoul retracted his deadly appendage and attempted another attack on Penny, but this time, he decided to use both of his tentacles instead of one. The method may have been different, but result was exactly the same.

Both centipede-like appendages were stopped by a group of swords. The two forces pushed against each other before Kaneki was overpowered, forcibly sent several feet backwards.

"Kaneki, Penny, you two need to stop this!" Ruby yelled, but her words fell on deaf ears. The orange-haired girl sent the swords she used to block the prior strikes directly at the crazed half ghoul. In response, Kaneki shot off towards his right and just barely missed getting hit. Penny kept firing her swords at him and continued to just barely miss, when the young man suddenly leapt up on to the wall of a nearby storage container, running on its side as if it were nothing. As if just suddenly realizing what she needed to do, Penny sent two swords directly in front of him.

The crazed half ghoul dug the tips of his tentacles into the wall of the storage container and forced himself to a dead stop, just barely missing being hit by the incoming projectiles. He then turned and pounced off of the container, aiming one of his protrusions directly at the orange-haired girl.

Sparks flew out into the air as Penny stopped the attack with another group of floating swords, but the move did very little to stop the half ghoul's own momentum, which allowed him to land directly in front of her after a slight trajectory change in mid-air. Kaneki hit the ground and proceeded to spin and slam the girl straight up into the air with backside of his other kagune.

Blake and Ruby could only watch as Kaneki reared his other tentacle back in preparation for a strike, lashing it out at Penny when she reached the peak of her launch. Before the spiny appendage could make contact with the girl, two swords shot out from the girls back and seemingly pulled her down back to the ground.

The moment she landed, Penny shot towards Kaneki's now exposed front and attempted to land an elbow directly into his face, but he leaned his head out of the way before the blow could hit. The crazed half ghoul jumped towards his opponent and tried to latch onto her arm, but was thrown off and away several feet backwards the moment he tried doing so.

Another volley of flying swords were sent Kaneki's way once space was made between the two, but the young man shifted his body to the right and shot off so fast that it looked like he disappeared, reappearing behind the orange-haired girl not a second later.

However, before Kaneki could do anything, a sudden crimson blur slammed directly into him as he slowed, knocking him straight up into the air. "Blake!" Ruby called out the moment she slowed. The Faunus in question jumped into action almost immediately.

Blake unwrapped her ribbon from around her wrist and shot towards the action. As she closed the distance, she noticed her companion flip himself all the way backwards and land clean on all fours, but she didn't stop her charge.

Probably sensing her approach, Kaneki switched his attention over to her and visibly froze up the moment he laid his one visible eye on her.

Remembering the pained cries he let out earlier, Blake unsheathed Gambol Shroud, tied her ribbon around its hilt, and stabbed it into the ground right as she neared the snowy-haired half ghoul.

Running around her friend while simultaneously tying him up with the ribbon was actually surprisingly easy, especially since he just remained frozen to where he stood nearly the entire time. He did eventually snap out of his daze, but unfortunately for him, she was already tying the knot tightly around him by that time.

The half ghoul attempted to free himself from the hold of his bonds by struggling against them violently with his tentacles flailing around behind him, but his outburst was soon stopped by a floating sword that suddenly slammed itself into his upper body. Its tip didn't break skin, but the energy built up behind it was enough to knock him several feet backwards.

Already knowing that it was Penny, Blake turned towards the orange-haired girl and found that she had several more swords floating around, all of which were pointed directly at Kaneki. "Wha-" Blake began to ask, but was cut off when she saw all of the swords fly directly at him.

One by one, every sword slammed itself against Kaneki's body with enough force to elicit pained grunts, coming so quickly and frequently that he didn't even have time to raise his kagune to protect himself. He just kept getting pummeled and pummeled by the floating blades, until the strikes eventually forced him down to his knees.

Upon seeing her end her assault, Blake subconsciously turned towards where Penny stood to see what she was planning to do next. What she found perplexed her to no end. The orange-haired girl's eyes had visibly changed as they were trained on her target, turning from green to red and losing their previous child-like luster. Her swords were arranged in a tight circle and spinning rapidly, pointed at Kaneki.

What the girl was planning on doing was initially completely lost to Blake, who only found herself even more perplexed when she saw a green light begin to grow in the middle of the circle. She only truly realized what was going on when it was too late and the light suddenly grew in size, before it burst from the group of swords quicker than a flash.

The bookworm could only watch on in delayed horror as the beam of light speed towards her bound friend, but thankfully, the snowy-haired half ghoul seemed to sense the danger and tried to shoot off to his right. She could tell from the way the ground crumbled under where he once stood that she did so with all of his energy. Unfortunately, however, that wasn't enough to completely evade the speed of light and the laser clipped him right in the side.

Kaneki was knocked off balance by the blow and bounced across the ground like a rock being skipped across a pond, before suddenly being stopped by the corner of a nearby storage container. There was no spectacular amount of destruction or debris knocked into the air when the two collided, but what did happen was his head bouncing right off the sharp edge of the container.

A loud, grisly metallic noise that made Blake cringe rang out through the air upon impact. Kaneki's head simply lolled forwards limply afterwards. His head remained hung like that for several seconds before trails of crimson began to stain his snowy hair. The trails ran down the length of each strand until the entire top half of his head was turned a deep, dark crimson.

Blake, truth be told, was horrified by the sight of her friend's injury. Not by the injury his tumble across the concrete resulted in however, but the injury that caused it to begin with.

A chunk of his abdomen was completely missing, leaving a large, circular hole in her friend's mid-section-one that she knew would've been bleeding profusely if it not for the fact the laser Penny shot at him singed all of the severed blood vessels closed.

Again, however, that wasn't the injury that was distressing Blake so much. No, the injury that her amber eyes were focused on made her legs lose all strength and made her fall to her knees. She could barely move from shock, but at the same time, made her want to run over to his side and see if he was alright.

"Oh no…" she muttered to herself, her voice gaining an uncharacteristically weak feel to it as the ears on the top her head drooped at what she saw. "… Kaneki."

When Blake had tied him up with her ribbon earlier, she did it in a way that pinned his arms down to his sides. But now, his arm…

His arm, right up to where his forearm met his elbow, was non-existent. Simply replaced by empty space.

Gone.

**-Chapter End-**

Did any of you really expect anything other than a cliffhanger from me? I mean, I've done it so many times that you should all just expect it from me now…

*quickly hides in a fridge to save self from incoming nuclear blasts*

[muffled] UNTIL NEXT TIME FOLKS!

*cue mushroom clouds*


	13. Chapter 11: Half-Hearted M

Hello, my name is With Death Comes More Death, and welcome to the eleventh installment of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant.

Today, the masses both cheer in jubilation and flip their tables in anguish as today officially marks the beginning of yet another two month update cycle for this fine story, which yet again ends in a cliffhanger. Though, the author has reminded its readers several times that he is an "asshole who likes to feast on the salt of his readers", many are still outraged.

In other news, the author of this story has formally announced on his profile that this chapter should've been posted much earlier than it was, as he had apparently finished it in a span of only two weeks after the posting of the last installment. He says that his beta-reader, FineChyna, is responsible for the delay, but before anyone could get a word in, he then proceeds to defend his editor and has been quoted in saying: "she has a life outside of helping me, and anyone who's mad at her for having one, should, frankly, go get one".

Oh wait… what's this? I'm just getting word that we actually have a never before seen comment from the suspect about her role in the delay. FineChyna says, and I quote, "Enjoy the chapter, I'm laughing at all of you because I've had this for at least a week. Plus, *insert shameless self-promotion here."

Viewers, I do not know what a "*insert shameless self-promotion here*" is, or why she verbally said the asterisk portion of that comment, but I assure you that authorities are working to detain her as we speak.

Now, after these mandatory disclaimers, we have a never before seen video from the author of this story, detailing the reasoning behind the relatively short length of his most recent work. Apparently, he thinks that the content of the actual chapter easily makes up for the length.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I'm simply not even going to try anymore. Dude, all I want is people to know that I don't any of these series, but they never seem to listen!

**-Chapter 11: Half-Hearted M-**

When Kaneki returned to consciousness, his mind was nothing more than a complete, jumbled mess. He couldn't remember anything after he gave into the voice in his head. There were a few moments where the half ghoul could've sworn he heard people calling out to him and seen a blurry figure that reminded him of Blake, but other than those few instances, he couldn't recall a thing.

Now, however, there was absolutely nothing. No sights, sounds, or smells. Only absolute darkness and a slightly sweet taste that lingered in his mouth.

_Is that honey…?_ He wondered to himself idly as he continued to sit in the nothingness that surrounded him. _No… that can't be-_

"Well." A voice-one that sent a cold shiver down his spine at the similarity it held to his own-spoke up suddenly, instantly breaking through the veil of nothingness around him. "We made a mess out of that partnership, didn't we?"

The invisible weight on his eyelids suddenly lifted and allowed Kaneki the opportunity to open them. His dull gray eyes were immediately met with an all too familiar colorless sky which he could only blink at owlishly. He ended up staring at the monochrome sky above him for a full twelve seconds before he forced himself up into a sitting position, taking a few moments to scan the oh-so-beautiful world around him.

Everywhere around him… They were everywhere around him, those flowers that, fittingly enough, he would only ever see when he was on death's impending doorstep. _Spider lilies._ He managed to recall their names after a few moments of contemplation. _That's what they're called._

Kaneki couldn't stop himself from smiling at the ethereal beauty that surrounded him. Despite knowing full well what all of it meant, he couldn't stop himself from silently enjoying the morbidness of the scene around him.

"Come on, are you just going to sit there all day?" The same voice called out to him once more. This time he was able to pinpoint that it had come directly from his right. Kaneki turned his head over in that direction. The moment he did so, he was immediately faced with a sight that made his eyes widen dramatically. "But then again, it's not like I'm any better, am I?"

There, sitting up in a position very similar to his own, was himself. The hair of his copy was jet-black, but there was no doubt in his mind that the person he was staring at was indeed himself. Subconsciously, Kaneki pushed himself to his feet and immediately began walking towards his dark-haired counterpart. Said counterpart did the same in perfect unison with him.

As he neared the figure, Kaneki noticed that his duplicate had heavy bags under his eyes. The moment they were in arm's length from one another, the two stopped their respective approaches, doing so in a way that made it seem like they planned to do so beforehand. The dark-haired variant of himself slowly began to reach a pale hand up, and an unknown force inside of Kaneki made him do the same.

For a moment, the snowy-haired half ghoul thought that there was a mirror between the two of them, but that thought was dashed the moment the figure across from him pressed his hand against something completely invisible and Kaneki himself felt nothing touch his hand.

Glancing down at his hand to see why that was, Kaneki found…Well, he didn't find anything. There was simply no hand there to touch the glass. "What-?" He immediately trailed off, his words coming out as shaky as his body became at the sight of his missing limb.

"You don't remember what happened?" His dark-haired counterpart asked him, forcing his attention back onto the figure standing before him. "Ah, let me lend you a hand with that." He smirked wryly, turned his attention to something behind him, and gave Kaneki an upwards nod.

Not knowing what else to do, the artificially-made half ghoul turned his trembling body to face the direction his counterpart had indicated and found himself staring at something that wasn't there previously.

A stream of water, stained the same color as the flowers that surrounded it, had somehow appeared behind him. Unconsciously, his dull gray eyes followed the brilliant crimson water downstream and found that it seemed to go on forever in an unnaturally straight line.

"Look into it," Kaneki heard his counterpart say from behind him before. The black-haired doppelganger let out an amused snort that sounded oddly bitter. "More likely than not, you'll regret it, but I assure that you'll find the answers you want in there."

Once again, Kaneki found himself not knowing what else to do and simply did as he was told. His body was still shaking uncontrollably as he gripped his stump of an arm, moved to the edge of the blood-stained water, and peered into it. As he did so, he realized that the colored liquid was more transparent than he first thought.

Inside the crimson-colored stream, Kaneki saw himself standing in front of the remnants of one of the dock's storage containers. His kakuja, white and black instead of black and red, was on full display to his adversary, the girl he knew simply as Neo. The moment he laid eyes upon himself, it became immediately clear that the throes of madness were already upon him.

Then, chaos erupted on the docks. Kaneki could only watch on helplessly as he fought the tri-colored man. Eventually, the two combatants found themselves inside the jib of a crane with his madness-addled self leaning towards Neo, mouth stretched open in preparation for a meal.

Before he could sink his teeth into her, a sudden explosion rocked the makeshift cage, knocking the kakuja-afflicted version of himself off balance and off of his meal. Neo didn't waste any time after being freed from his clutches and teleported away, which then allowed the man who caused the first explosion, the orange-haired man from earlier, to shoot an explosive directly into Kaneki's face.

At the exact moment he saw that happen, Kaneki felt an intense heat spread through three-thirds of his face, but despite the intense pain, he made no physical reaction. He could only watch on in shock as his body proceeded to search for food to heal the damage he took, which eventually brought the kakuja to the one place he didn't want to be in that state.

Standing directly in front of him was a group of three made up of an orange-haired girl he didn't know, Ruby and Blake. The half ghoul could only stare on in a maelstrom of shock and anguish as the half-kakuja controlling his body attacked the girl he wasn't familiar with, which prompted the group of three to retaliate back against him.

Kaneki soon found out what caused the lost on his arm. It was a team effort, really.

When he tried to split the unknown girl in half after managing to get behind her, Ruby slammed Crescent Rose into his side to stop him. Blake then proceeded to tie him up with the ribbon she always kept tied around her forearm, which gave the unknown girl enough time to recover and shoot those floating swords of her's into him repeatedly. Like the explosion that hit him earlier, the snowy-haired half ghoul was hit with dull bursts of pain in the exact same locations those swords hit the incomplete kakuja, but once again he opted to ignore them and continue watching the unfamiliar memory.

The repeated impacts were eventually enough to force his crazed self down onto his knees, where his unfamiliar opponent saw her opportunity to charge up and fire some sort of laser at him.

Fortunately, even in that terribly delirious state, the kakuja-variant of himself was able to notice the danger and immediately attempted to flee. Unfortunately, he didn't manage to do so in time and was clipped in his attempt to dodge, sending him careening head-first into the corner of a nearby storage container. Beaten, bruised, burned, bloodied, partially mutilated and without a portion of his arm.

It was truly a gruesome sight to see. Kaneki could only imagine what it looked like to his friends. He didn't want to know what it would do to them in a mental sense. Having to see a friend in such a desperate state…

"I told you that you'd regret it," the doppelganger told him, his tone still irritatingly light-hearted and playful. "But then again, it's not like I gave you much choice in the matter." Upon glancing over his shoulder to look at the copy, Kaneki found the dark-haired variant sheepishly scratching the back of his head. He opened his mouth and added, "Oh, and I'm sorry about all of that."

"What was that?" The snowy-haired half ghoul asked, his voice becoming nothing more than a low whisper as his trembling suddenly ceased.

"Sorry about that," the copy reiterated, his tone suddenly became much more solemn. "I thought that the two of us together would be enough to gain some sort of control over it, but looks like I was wrong."

A spike of anger flared up inside Kaneki at those words, prompting him to put his feet under him and burst towards the doppelganger. However, that only resulted in him slamming up against the invisible barrier that stood between them. "Why then?" He growled venomously, using his remaining hand to scratch at where the copy's throat should've been.

"Do you want this body back?" Kaneki demanded, slamming the underside of his fist into the obstruction between them, doing so over and over again with all of his might. "This body's mine…" he growled, his voice becoming more and more feral with every word. "...Mine mine mine mine mine!"

"Why?" The doppelganger repeated, scoffing in amusement as he tilted his head quizzically. A wry smile that only infuriated Kaneki further crawled onto the copy's lips. "Couldn't I ask you that very same question?"

Kaneki stopped his pounding the moment his counterpart said those words. "...What do you mean?" His voice didn't lose any of its previous venom despite its mellowing, nor did his glare lose any of its previous intensity.

Wordlessly, the dark-haired variant of himself nodded his head off to his right and soon began walking in that direction. Once more not finding himself not knowing what to do, Kaneki followed his copy, but not before noticing a familiar gap in the crimson flowers on the other side of the glass.

* * *

"Kaneki…" Blake whimpered helplessly, staring at the downed form of her friend as he sat slumped up against the dented wall of the metal shipping container. Blood poured down his snow-white hair, and his body refused to move an inch from where it lay.

Blake knew that she had seen the half-ghoul survive things that would've killed a normal person tenfold, but there was something about this time that just seemed different to her. She could tell by the way he wasn't healing. Normally, after being injured to such an extent, Kaneki's body would begin repairing itself, but for some unfathomable reason, it wasn't.

"Blake!" The all too familiar voice of Ruby cried out to her, but that, even when it was accompanied by a good shake of the shoulder, wasn't enough to break the bookworm's fixation on the snowy-haired half ghoul. "Blake, you need to get up!" This time Ruby pulled on her hand like she was a child trying to get their parent to look at something. "We need to go and help Kaneki!"

This managed to drag Blake's attention away from her friend and over to her young team leader, who was staring down at her with worried silver eyes. The cat-eared Faunus immediately felt a wave of resentment wash over her upon laying eyes on Ruby. She wanted to lash out at the younger girl for bringing the person who was responsible for all that happened to Kaneki. To yell and scream at her for being careless enough to bring someone they didn't even know on a search for the two biggest secret-keepers on the team. To blame her for everything that just happened.

Thankfully, Blake knew better than to do something like that, especially when Ruby wasn't the one to blame for Kaneki's current condition. It was her fault, all of it. If she had kept her cool and avoided accidentally exposing her Faunus heritage how she had, then none of this would've ever happened in the first place. If she-

**"Wh… What do you want from me?"** Those words escaped the half ghoul's mouth in a low, shaky whisper. It immediately drew Blake's attention back into him upon hearing it. **"Wha…"**

"Kaneki…?" She whispered back. Her voice held an undertone of relief to it that her friend's lacked.

"Come on Blake, get up!" Aforementioned dark-haired teenage girl heard her team leader cry out, her tone desperate as he tugged at her arm once more. "Kaneki needs our help!"

"Y-yeah," Blake could only stutter in response as she slowly pushed herself back up to her feet with the help of Ruby.

"Ruby, Blake, I must suggest that you stay away from him," Penny warned the two. "Your friend is far too dangerous to be near."

"'Dangerous'?" Ruby repeated, her voice filled with astonishment. "Penny, look at him." She pointed directly at the downed half-ghoul. "Does that look like someone who's dangerous to you?"

"Well, no, not really."

"Then, what exactly is the problem?"

"Didn't you see those protrusions coming out of his back? He's very clearly not human!"

"So what? I could really care less about the fact that Kaneki's not human! All I care about is that he's my friend and he's really hurt, right now!"

The moment those words left Ruby's mouth, Penny visibly flinched in response, but never got the chance to say something back as another, all too familiar voice cut into their conversation before the girl could.

**"This body is…"** The sound of Kaneki's voice drew all three girls' attention. They saw that at some point, he had forced himself back up to his feet. **"…Mine…"** The half ghoul then clutched at the gaping wound in his side with all five of his black-tipped fingers. **"Mine mine mine mine mine!"**

And then, suddenly, the beaten, bloodied young man took a shaky step forwards.

* * *

Wordlessly, Kaneki continued to follow the dark-haired variant of himself, making sure to keep a wary eye on the copy at all times.

"Alright, this is where we stop," the doppelganger stated right as he brought himself to a stop.

That statement only served to confuse Kaneki, as there was nothing particularly different about their current surroundings. The only real difference that he could see was that the crimson stream next to him began to angle off to the right, but only very slightly. He probably wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for the fact that there was nothing else to catch his attention during the trek.

"…What exactly does bringing me here accomplish?" The snowy-haired half ghoul asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Sorry, can't tell you that just yet," answered the dark-haired variant, cheekily raising his index finger to his lips. "But I can tell you how you can move the process along." Kaneki let the narrowing of his eyes be the response to that. "All you have to do is turn around and look into the water like you did earlier."

Not seeing any other option, Kaneki did as he was told and turned to face the crimson stream behind him. He stepped over to the bank, kneeled down and looked down into the waters. What he found when he looked into it was a sight that was forever burned into his mind.

There, inside the waters, was the reaper of the CCG himself, Kishou Arima. Kaneki saw himself in the scarlet stream as well, with his only visible eye widened and jaw slackened in shock.

An all too familiar feeling of dread welled up in the half ghoul's stomach at the sight of the most feared man in all of ghoul society as he stood there, in what he, at the time, thought to be a bed of flowers-the same flowers that surrounded him now. He knew that the man standing before him would most likely bring kill him, but for some completely unfathomable reason, Kaneki still found him beautiful. Then, reality reared its ugly head and brought the truth of the situation to the forefront of his mind.

Arima wasn't standing in a bed spider lilies like he first thought. No, he was standing in a pile of corpses, all of them wearing the same masks he knew Irimi and Koma to be wearing at the time.

Horror filled the snowy-haired half ghoul. Horror directed at the sight itself and horror directed at himself for thinking such a sight beautiful. Fear filled him and yet, somehow, he dug up enough courage to try and fight the Reaper of the CCG.

The second after he steeled himself to fight, Kaneki felt a sudden numbness take up the entirety of the left portion of his face. For the briefest moment, the artificially-made half ghoul could only stand there and wonder what just happened, but it wasn't long before an indescribable, mind-numbing pain overtook all of his senses-both inside the memory and outside of it.

Pain became his entire world. His limbs gave out and he subsequently crumpled to the ground. The him outside the memory probably would've done the same if he could.

What happened next played out exactly like he remembered. The him in the memory pulled the quinque from his head with his kagune and then proceeded to engage Arima. He fought against the Reaper with everything he had, but no matter what he did, he couldn't land a single hit. Eventually, the half ghoul got caught by one of Arima's quinques and was impaled clean through the stomach.

As his body parts failed and he fell onto his back, he subconsciously recognized the blow to be final nail in his coffin. A fact that only became more apparent to him when Arima walked up to his motionless form and positioned the tip of his quinque over Kaneki's one remaining eye.

Right as the Reaper was about to impale Kaneki's eye, the memory faded from his mind. He found himself back in the field of spider lilies, kneeling on the bank of the stream that had dragged that memory back to the surface.

Slowly, shakily, the snowy-haired half ghoul brought his hand up to his head and clutched at the area surrounding his left eye, which began to ache from the pain that memory brought to him. His breathing became rapid and uncontrollable as everything he felt in that moment came rushing back to him in a single, overwhelming wave of pain and emotion.

Kaneki could hear his doppelganger say something to him, but wasn't able to comprehend the copy's words as the world around the original seemed like nothing more than an incoherent mess.

Eventually, through sheer force of will alone, the artificially-made half ghoul was able to force stability back into his world. Pushing himself back up to his feet, Kaneki took a moment to scan the crimson-filled world around him for the location of his doppelganger, but found that the copy was nowhere to be found.

Realizing that the dark-haired variant of himself most likely continued on walking downstream, Kaneki's feet began moving him in that very same direction, knowing that it was the only way any of this would come to an end.

No matter how much he hated the idea of having to relive anymore painful memories, the snowy-haired half ghoul needed to clear things up with Blake and Ruby as fast as possible. His own welfare was secondary in all of this, after all. The only thing that really mattered here was keeping his relationship with those two stable. _That's all that matters… That's all that matters._

* * *

Blake could only watch on at the pitiable form of Kaneki as he tried to make his way over to where the three of them stood, even with his body seemingly rejecting every attempt at movement in favor of shutting itself down. Each step forwards lead to a stumble that nearly brought him to the ground, but despite that, his approach never ceased.

**"Need… need to save…"** The words left the half ghoul's mouth in a low, absent-minded mumble. **"…Manager… Irimi… Koma… have to get to, need to save…"** Pain stabbed Blake's heart when she heard the desperation in her friend's voice. It wasn't the kind of desperation someone could fake, not even in all of his delirium. It was so pure and unadulterated that there was no way it could've been a delusion. Clearly, whatever he was referring to was something that actually happened. **"Going to… can't-won't let them be taken away from me."**

Not being able to take watching anymore, Blake moved to go and help him, doing so right as his legs gave out under him and gravity forced him down to his knees.

**"S-so beautiful…"** Kaneki murmured to himself, staring blankly off in front of him, jaw hanging loosely. **"…The Reaper, he's standing in a field of flowers."** The snowy-haired half ghoul brought his one remaining hand up and clutched roughly at his temple. **"He…he's razed a coffee field to the ground…A field that's sown on beloved corpses, but still I-so** **why…?"** His voice became nothing more than broken sobs. **"Why do I still find the sight to be so beautiful?"**

* * *

Kaneki continued to follow the stream next to him until he came across the figure he was looking for, who was standing with his back to the invisible wall that separated them, leaning against it almost as if he didn't have a care in the world.

"So, you finally caught up," stated the copy, his voice sounding noticeably more solemn as he spoke. "Good, I think you know what I want you to do by now." The doppelganger flashed Kaneki a reassuring smirk. "Don't worry, we're almost done, I assure you that."

"…Yeah," the snowy-haired half ghoul stated with a slight nod of his head. Not wanting to waste any more time, he quickly positioned himself at the bank of the stream and allowed his gaze to fall into the waters.

The next moment, Kaneki found himself staring down at an all too familiar checkerboard floor as a numbness suddenly overcame his fingers. His breathing came faster, quick, terrified gasps. A flood of fear and panic swelled up inside of him when he heard a cruel, familiar begin to taunt him, laugh at him for being so weak and helpless.

As it persisted in his ears, anger swelled up inside of him. Anger at the man putting him through all the hell he was going through and anger at himself for being too weak to stop any of it. That was when Kaneki heard Yamori say something that caused the blood in his veins to still to a dead stop.

Less than a second later, the thing was inside his head. Writhing and wriggling, biting and scratching at everything. The amount of pain coursing through his body was so much that he couldn't even express it in a normal shriek. For some reason, he found that incredibly funny.

And so he laughed. Laughed and laughed until his laughter turned to uncontrollable sobbing. The half ghoul couldn't help crying anymore. He couldn't take it anymore… All of the pain. It was too much. He asked for it... Death. Begged and pleaded for it between his sobs. He just wanted it all to end so he didn't have to go through anymore pain, but it didn't.

For days, Yamori persisted on with the torture, taking his fingers and toes off so many times that he started to believe that they had become separated permanently. Then, the hockey-mask wearing bastard did something that pushed him right off the edge of the proverbial cliff he was hanging off of, dragging any remaining semblance of sanity he had left down with him.

Kei… Kouto… All of it was his fault. His lack of power caused them to die. Not just the two of them, but Ms. Ryouko as well.

That was when the memory faded and Kaneki found himself kneeling on the bank of the crimson stream once more, a noticeable coolness slowly trailing down his cheeks as he continued to kneel there and stare into the water.

"Hey, uh, are you alright?" The sound of his doppelganger's voice broke the artificially-made half ghoul from his reverie and pushed his numb body back up to a standing position. As he looked over his shoulder at the dark-haired variant of himself, a hoax of a smile crawled onto his lips. He gave the copy a nod of his head in response-one that Kaneki was sure wouldn't fool him at all.

The doppelganger didn't say anything, but his expression did become troubled as he began heading downstream once more. Wordlessly, the snowy-haired half ghoul cracked his index finger and moved to follow his copy.

* * *

Blake finally reached Kaneki a little bit after he finished with his most recent outburst. Aforementioned half ghoul having prostrated himself during the time it took for her to do so.

**"It…it hurts so much…"** he muttered to himself, in the same broken sobs from earlier, **"…My toes-my fingers-they're completely numb…I can't feel them at all." **His body began to tremble violently as his crazed ramblings dissolved into desperate pleas. **"Stop…please stop…please stop taking them…I-I can't take watching them regrow again."**

Pain stabbed at Blake's heart at the words her friend just uttered and she immediately reached a hand out to try and comfort him. The instant her hand hand got anywhere near the trembling young man, he lifted his bloodstained head from the ground and flinched back at the sight of aforementioned hand, landing himself flat on his back in the process.

**"N-no, please don't…p-please don't stick that in there…"** The half ghoul pleaded, bringing his hand up to his head and rolling onto his side. Suddenly, he screamed, his voice full of agony. **"Get it out, get it out, get it out!"** He began to thrash around on the ground. **"It keeps clawing and biting at everything! Get it out, get it out of my head!"**

At that moment, Blake allowed herself to delve into the worry that was coursing throughout her and knelt down in front of the half ghoul to…to do something to help him.

Then, Kaneki muttered something that completely floored her.

* * *

Kaneki continued to follow his doppelganger until he was forced to stop by a familiar crimson stream, which suddenly made a hard turn to the right and cut directly in front of him. The sudden change shocked him, as he had kept his eyes so focused on his dark-haired counterpart that he nearly missed all of the aforementioned changes.

Following the drastically changed path of the stream before him, he found out how his copy knew exactly where to go.

There, on the other side of the translucent barrier that separated them, was another stream of a similar size that connected with his own-one that held waters clearer than his own. By no means did that mean it was actually free from color, however. From where he currently stood, Kaneki could tell that the stream's translucency was indeed slightly stained. It didn't contain enough to obscure his view of the bottom, but there was just enough to make said view slightly murkier.

"Alright, this is our final stop," the dark-haired variant stated, a slight edge of exasperation to his voice.

"Does that mean you'll finally answer some of my questions then?" Kaneki asked the doppelganger, his voice harboring a severe lack of emotion. The copy nodded his head. Kaneki took a few moments to contemplate what he should ask. When he finally came up with a few select questions he wanted answers to, he opened his mouth to lay down the first. "Who exactly are you?"

"What makes you ask that?" The doppelganger shot back a question of his own with the most unconvincing innocent tone Kaneki had ever heard. "I'm just a representation of your past self, after all."

Kaneki let loose an irritated snort in response to the question, not finding an ounce of enjoyment in having to explain what exactly he meant with that question. "You don't act like how any one of my past selves would act," the half ghoul explained to his ever so cheeky copy. "So could you please stop acting like you're no different?"

The imperfect reflection let out a pleased-sounding chuckle before replying. "Yeah, you're right." The dark-haired variant of himself then proceeded to flash him an all too familiar, kind-hearted smile as he added, "I'm not a part of you at all."

"Who exactly are you then?" The snowy-haired half ghoul repeated his question, narrowing his dull gray eyes at the dark-haired copy. "If you're not my past self, then…" he trailed off upon realizing who exactly he was talking to. "You..." Kaneki stopped, his face contorting in realization.

"You're Haise, right?"

The dark-haired variant hummed in amusement and replied, sheepishly scratching at his cheek, "I was wondering when you'd finally figure that out." He then proceeded to lower his hand back down to his side and added, "I've been sending you so many messages that I was starting to wonder how you could 'stomach' it."

"So, does that mean that what I assumed earlier-" Kaneki began to ask, his voice tensing with his body, before the figure claiming to be Haise cut him off.

"No, it's not."

"Then why are you doing all of this to me?" The artificially-made half ghoul asked, making sure to get across how little patience he had left. "Causing that pain in my stomach, convincing me to use my kakuja, and showing me all of my old memories…" Kaneki clenched his hand into a tight ball. "What was it all for?"

Haise flashed him what looked like an apologetic smile before opening his mouth to reply. "I guess you could say that I was just trying to indulge my own selfishness." He turned his head towards where the two streams conjoined. "Neo is really precious to me, and I just wanted to keep her safe."

"By having me unleash my kakuja?" Kaneki skeptically.

"Hey, cut me some slack will you?" his dark-haired boy shot back, playfully defensive. "I just thought that with the both of us present in your mind, we'd, or at the very least, one of us would be able to gain some semblance of control over it." Another chuckle escaped Haise's mouth before he added, "I guess that just proves you're stronger than me, even when you're completely out of your mind."

A _crack_ sounded throughout the air as Kaneki narrowed his eyes in response to the statement. "So, why are you showing me all of this then?" He asked, gesturing towards the crimson stream behind him. "You told me that you were just trying to protect Neo, but none of that explains what any of that has to do with what you've been showing me."

"Do you want to hear something that you might find interesting?" the doppelganger began, going on as if the question had never been asked in the first place. "The two of us…" He trailed off as he returned his attention back onto the original. "…I don't think we have a single thing in common the way the both of us are now."

The dark-haired counterpart then proceeded to flash him a smile that was noticeably different from his previous one-it was a smile that truthfully wouldn't have looked out of place on Kaneki's own face. "You," Haise began, his voice being a strange mix of solemn and mirthful throughout, "are exactly the kind of person Neo wanted me to be, and yet for some reason I can say with the utmost certainty that I would never want to be like you, especially after seeing what you've gone through to become like that."

After saying that, Haise let out a laugh that contradicted its purpose with the heaviness that it contained underneath it. "The funny part about all of that is how easily our places could've been switched."

"What do you mean?" The snowy-haired half ghoul asked, a bead of sweat trailing down the side of his head, completely unsure of what the young man across from him had just said.

"Wait, you haven't figured it out yet?" Haise shot back with a question of his own. "Hm, I would've thought that someone who reads as many books as you do would've been able to pick up on what that meant easily. Or maybe you're just actively ignoring what it _could_ mean."

Kaneki blinked owlishly at his interdimensional counterpart before his dull gray eyes gradually began drifting over to his left and onto the two conjoined streams next to him.

"Ah, so it was the latter then?" Haise asked, in a way that made it clear the question was rhetorical, so the half ghoul in question made no move to respond to it.

As cliché as it sounded, the sight drew Kaneki in like he was moth moving towards an open flame. His feet moved almost like they were in autopilot, slowly drawing him closer and closer to the center of his fixation with every step he took.

"Did you finally figure it out?" Haise asked, right as Kaneki reached where the stream branched off into two, separate parts.

"Mom, she really did beat the both of us a lot, didn't she?"

At that exact moment, the snowy-haired half ghoul peered deep into where the two crimson-stained streams met and almost immediately found himself staring at the familiar sight of his mother's house slippers.

The moment those slippers came into view a familiar and painful warmth began spreading across the surface of his left cheek, before it turned into a stinging pain that made him flinch upon reaching its full intensity-a pain that only became more prominent when compared to the coolness of the wooden floor pressing against the opposite cheek. After everything he'd gone through, the pain should've been miniscule, but somehow, it hurt worse than any pain he'd ever had to experience.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Kaneki saw the legs leading into his mother's house slippers bend and lower themselves onto their knees. His eyes began following the legs upwards and found the familiar face of his mother staring down at him, but even though her disheveled hair covered up the majority of her face from view, he could still feel her staring.

The sun wasn't present in her gaze like he remembered. That source of warmth and light that followed him throughout his entire childhood was gone. Blanketed away from view by blackened rain clouds that poured with a never ending flow of sleet.

Subconsciously, he reached a hand out towards where the sun once burned brightly, trying to grasp at the once present warmth that he remembered. That was when another hand was raised into the air and sleet suddenly became twenty times more appealing, especially when compared to the hail that it morphed into. And yet, despite the pummeling he was receiving at its hands, he couldn't bring himself to hate the world around him for it.

How could one hate mother nature for doing as it did naturally? The person affected could only sit back, numb, and try to make due with the moments of calm that lay between the storms, trying to find the beauty in the destroyed world, despite all of the debris that lay scattered on the ground.

A sudden warmth wrapping itself around his shoulder broke the snowy-haired half ghoul from his reverie. Upon turning around, he found himself staring at the hand of his dark-haired counterpart. Following it to its owner, Haise flashed him an apologetic smile. Kaneki allowed one of his own to form in response before his legs suddenly gave out under him, leading him to fall unceremoniously onto his backside. Not a few seconds later, a weight rested itself upon his back, but he made no move to look back, as he already knew what it was.

"You know, I both pity and envy you," Haise stated suddenly, his voice solemn. "You've gone through so much more than me, and yet I'm the one who accepted death with open arms." He hummed in bitter amusement before adding, "Despite what I said earlier, a part of me wishes that I had that kind of strength."

At that moment, flashbacks of his encounter with Arima surged to the forefront of Kaneki's mind and he thought back onto why exactly he thought the sight of the Reaper to be so beautiful. He…Ken Kaneki...saw the end of all suffering in that field of his friends' corpses. He desperately wanted the nothingness that road would lead to.

To have no more pain to go through…That was a desire that he kept buried deep down inside him for a while, so much so that even he forgot about it until he thought his death was certain-until he encountered Arima.

Yet, despite him having wanted it for so long, the artificially-made half ghoul couldn't help but hope that he would somehow miraculously live on, though what caused it wasn't strength like his Haise claimed.

"Strength?" Kaneki repeated incredulously, shaking his head. "No, that wasn't strength." His entire upper body slumped forwards dramatically as his chin found its way in between his recently curled-up knees. "That was just my own selfishness."

"In the end, I…" The truth of the matter caught in his throat as he tried to force it out. "...I just didn't want to be hurt anymore…"

He found it odd. How that simple phrase could accurately describe the entirety of his existence. But it did, and he refused to deny it any longer. It didn't matter to him if he received his desired future in life or death, he'd just had enough with being the one who was constantly hurt.

A warmth suddenly enveloping his one remaining hand. Kaneki glanced down towards and proceeded to lift it into the air, staring at the back of it as if the familiar confines held the answer to his dilemma. Silence proceeded to reign over the two, until Haise finally broke the stalemate between them. "Hm, if that's really the case, then would you mind allowing me to indulge in a selfish wish of my own?"

Not seeing any problem with it, the snowy-haired half ghoul let out a hum of acceptance, prompting his counterpart to begin speaking once more. "I'm okay with fading away," Haise told him, his voice wistful. "I'll gladly give you full control over this body, but only if you promise me this first."

"…What is it?" Kaneki asked, unsure if his decision to hear Haise out was a good one or not.

"Neo, she may not seem like it, but she's lonely," his dark-haired counterpart said, his voice getting more and more weak as he continued to speak. "I tried to remedy that problem, but I've never had to go through the kind of loneliness that she's had to."

"Remedy that problem," Haise added, with a finality that made it clear that he was almost done with his offer. "Promise me that much…" He trailed off weakly, before he took in a deep breath through his nostrils and continued. "…Promise me that much, and I'll fade away."

Another bout of silence reigned over the two of them-a silence which Kaneki promptly used to contemplate whether or not he should accept the proposal given to him.

"Alright," he stated after a while. "I promise."

"…Okay then."

With that final statement, the weight that was pressing up against his back disappeared and a sudden coolness surrounded the lower portion of his body. Upon casting his dull gray eyes down towards it, Kaneki found he was submerged in the crimson water clear up to his waist.

Curious, Kaneki turned his head towards the two streams from earlier, then allowed himself to fall backwards into the water. The smallest of smiles crept onto his lips when he saw that the two crimson streams no longer surrounded him; instead merging into one large river that flowed opposite the way it did earlier.

As his sight was taken away by the color crimson and then the color black, a pleasant warmth surrounded his upper body and Kaneki realized, in an admittedly selfish way, that he enjoyed it more than nothing at all.

* * *

**"**Mother…I don't need it… I don't need it anymore, I'm sorry…**"******Blake heard Kaneki whisper brokenly under his breath. His thrashing suddenly mellowed into trembling.** "**I…don't need it.**"**He brought his remaining hand-his left hand-up to his face and cupped shaky fingers around his chin, continuing on with his rambling.** "**I don't need it anymore, so please…please don't hit me again…I'm sorry.**"**

For a moment, Blake could've swore that she felt her heart grind to a stop after hearing him say those words. _So is that why-? _she thought, but was forced to stop that train of thought when some sort of ash-like material suddenly took up the entirety of her vision.

Glancing down at the body of her downed friend, she found that the mask that covered up the upper left portion of his face had evaporated away as if it was never there in the first place, revealing the eye that lay underneath. The first thing she noticed about it was the amount of sheer, almost child-like terror that lay within the dull gray pupil.

**"I'm sorry…"** Kaneki apologized under his breath once more, lifting his hand up into the air as if he was reaching out for some invisible object that hung just barely out of reach. **"…I'm so sorry…"**

That was the final straw in her books. Simply no longer caring about what consequences might befall her for doing so, Blake reached both of her hands out and gently wrapped them around Kaneki's outstretched hand in an attempt to comfort the obviously distressed young man in front of her.

The moment their hands made contact with one another, all of Kaneki's trembling immediately ceased. Free from his convulsions, he proceeded to lift his cheek up from the concrete and turn his head towards her, attempting to focus his shaky left eye directly at her own. They remained in that position for several, silence-filled moments before the half ghoul's hand suddenly slipped away from her grasp.

At first, Blake thought that his arm had gone limp, which caused a spike of worry to run through her, but upon looking down to check the condition of her friend, she found that the reality was much more reassuring than she first assumed. Instead of finding his arm lying motionless on the ground, Blake found that the palm of his hand was pressed up against the concrete as he tried to use it to push himself up.

Already knowing that the half ghoul was going to need help getting up with only one arm, she immediately moved to help him up, but was stopped dead in her tracks when the majority of her sight was obscured by a sudden monochrome blur. Then, before she knew it, white took up the majority of the peripheral vision on her left side.

**"Why…?"** Kaneki's breath tickled the surface of her neck as he spoke, which was probably a given considering he had rested his head directly onto her left shoulder. **"…Why…"** His voice trailed off right as he snaked his arm around the opposite shoulder and lightly pulled her body closer to his own-an act that probably would've made her flustered if it wasn't for the circumstances behind it. **"…Why didn't I want to die?"**

Feeling a sudden compulsion to do so, Blake slipped both of her arms around his chest and returned the embrace. The corners of her lips upturned in a smile when she felt him relax against her.

**"I…"** Her friend muttered at a volume that was just barely loud enough for her to hear.

"…I just don't want to be hurt anymore."

That was when his grip suddenly faded and he went limp, slumping up against her like there wasn't a bone in his entire body. Thankfully, his position slumped up against her made it easy for Blake to feel his chest continue to rise and fall normally, dashing any worries she had for his condition.

**-Chapter End-**

Well, that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I worked on it non-stop for those two weeks that I did and I'd really like to see you all enjoy it.

And if you did enjoy it, would you like me to do more things like that in the future. Head over to my profile and you can tell me via poll, or just put it in your review. I don't really care, but I'd appreciate having solid numbers to compare instead of just gut feeling.

So, anyways, I love y'all and be sure to send FineChyna some love too. For, you know, getting it done. She does have a life. Remember that, you hear!


	14. Chapter 12: Agon and Seflishness

NTR is a trash fetish…

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I repeat, NTR is a trash fetish.

**-Chapter 12: Agon and Selfishness-**

When Kaneki finally returned to consciousness, he found that the back of his head was strangely comfortable-an adjective that he couldn't use to describe the rest of his body, as he was sure that he was currently lying flat against concrete.

Whatever was under his head was extremely soft and warm, making it easily the most comfortable pillow he'd ever laid his head on. Subconsciously, in attempt to gain even more comfort for himself, he tried to dig his face deeper into whatever was under him, but was forced to stop when he felt it shift slightly.

_What…_ He thought groggily, attempting to pry his eyelids open. _What in the world was that?_

The moment he finally managed to force his heavy eyelids open, the first thing that Kaneki noticed was that he was staring straight at someone's bare stomach. It took a few moments for his mind to shake off the haze he gained earlier and figure out who exactly he was staring at, but when he did, his eyes immediately shot upwards to confirm his assumption.

Kaneki could feel his heart skip a beat at the sight of her. "Blake…?" The name slipped out of his mouth as gray met amber. The two were suddenly thrown into an inescapable contest of the other's stamina-a contest that never got the chance to determine a clear winner, as it was, unfortunately, broken up a few seconds into its conception by the all-too-familiar voice of their team leader.

"Kaneki!" Ruby exclaimed, her voice somehow harboring a mixture of panic and relief, despite the natural conflictions something of that nature would entail. "You're finally awake!"

As she yelled the final part, Kaneki heard the sound of her footsteps tapping rapidly against the ground and promptly rolled himself onto his back to turn towards where it came from. Once turned, he saw nothing but a familiar bundle of crimson standing over him with a worried expression plastered over her normally bright face. "Are you alri-" she began to ask him the moment she saw that she had his attention, "-uh, I mean, does it hurt anywhere?"

Kaneki couldn't help but smile at the worry his team leader was showing him, being completely unable to find the familiar display anything but cute. At that moment, all of the brotherly instincts that had developed over his time with Hinami were forced up to the surface and made him move to quell her worries. His abdominal muscles screamed in protest as he forced himself up into a sitting position, but that pain, when compared to the stab in his heart when he saw how much he worried her, seemed all too insignificant.

"I'm going to be fine, Ruby," Kaneki assured her in the most soothing tone he could muster.

Ruby opened her mouth, probably in an attempt to try and refute what he'd just claimed, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by the sound of footsteps. He could hear multiple pairs of them, three to be more specific, all coming directly towards where the three of them stood.

Kaneki and his two teammates turned their heads towards where the footsteps were coming from and found a group of three walking towards them. None of which looking particularly happy, he idly noted.

Immediately, he recognized two of three to be Weiss and Yang, but the blonde-haired boy following them was completely unfamiliar.

"Weiss, I can explain-" Ruby began, but her words ended up falling on deaf ears as Weiss walked by her without uttering a word, only stopping when she stood directly in front of where Kaneki and Blake sat together.

The artificially-made half ghoul could only smile as he felt Weiss's icy eyes scan over him several times, immediately recognizing it to be one of the few ways she would ever show her worry. One that he got very familiar with over the few weeks he spent training with her.

Not being one who enjoyed having serious conversations while sitting flat on asphalt, Kaneki reached a hand up onto the police car that had, at some point, appeared behind his back. He searched for a suitable handhold and tried to pull himself up onto his feet. His already strained muscles once again screeched their protest at being put to use. Kaneki tried to push past it, but unlike last time, his efforts were in vain.

_Looks like using my kakuja drained me even more than the last couple times I used it,_ he thought as his right leg gave out under him, forcing him to strain his remaining arm even further as he caught himself before he landed on the ground. _I suppose that should be expected, since I didn't get anything to eat after sustaining those injuries. I'm going to have to fix that before I get back to Beacon._

Placing the leg that gave out back under him, Kaneki attempted to try and push himself up again and immediately realized that the attempt would fare no better than the last, which prompted him to brace for another fall. The pain, however, never came, as a familiar warmth wrapped itself around his midsection, catching him just before he could impact with the asphalt.

"Thanks," He murmured appreciatively, shooting Blake, who had been the one to stop his descent, a warm smile.

"Don't mention it," she replied, switching over to his left side before slinging his remaining arm over her shoulders and helping him up to his feet.

Once his feet were back under him, Kaneki found that his legs could barely carry his weight. Having probably sensed that, he felt Blake pull him closer to her, which prompted a relieved sigh to slip from him as he felt the weight taken off of his already weary legs.

"Kaneki…are you-?" Weiss began the expected question once Kaneki finally managed to pry his eyes from the ground and refocus them back onto her, but he decided to stop her before it could come out.

"Weiss, I'm going to be-" he began, but now, he soon found himself being interrupted.

"Don't you dare say that you're going to be alright!" At that moment, the heiress's beloved composure slipped and blared all of her pent up worries right in his face, prompting everyone around her to stare in shock. Taking in a deep breath through her nostrils, she continued in a much more controlled, yet equally angry tone. "I mean, Kaneki, just take a look at yourself." She gestured at him with a vertical wave of her hand. "You can barely stand, you're completely covered in blood, and I know that I don't need to remind you of this, but you're missing an arm!"

"So tell me," Weiss finished, pinching the bridge of her nose, "how can you possibly try to say that you're alright when you're in such bad condition?"

"Weiss…" Blake muttered under her breath, guilty. This prompted Kaneki to clench her shoulder in an attempt to comfort the person who was keeping him up.

The heiress must've heard her name being said, because immediately to after that, she turned her attention towards Blake. "How did this happen?"

Blake blinked, seemingly out of it. "Huh?"

"How did this happen?" Weiss repeated, an almost palpable irritability in her voice.

"Weiss-" Kaneki tried to interrupt the heiress, sensing a bit of an accusation in her voice.

However, Weiss promptly cut him off."How in the world did you running away turn into all of this?" demanded the snowy-haired young woman, blowing past his attempt at an interruption like it was never there. "Was it the White Fang?"

Kaneki glanced at his dark-haired support and found that she had cast her eyes down at the ground. At first he assumed that she was letting the silence answer the question for her, but she suddenly opened her mouth and spoke, though it came out as nothing more than a low whisper. "No, it wasn't _completely _the White Fang."

"But they definitely played a part, correct?" Weiss asked. Blake could only nod in response, albeit begrudgingly. Weiss shook her head and growl loudly. If it was out of frustration or disgust, Kaneki simply didn't know.

"Yes, but-" Blake attempted to argue, but was promptly cut off.

"But what?" Weiss demanded, her tone filled with a form of outrage Kaneki had never heard before. "What could you possibly say that could justify Kaneki losing an arm?!" Her teammate's outburst left Blake completely speechless. "Just admit it already! This was nothing more than a wild goose chase for something that you should've left behind a long time ago!" Weiss pointed at him. "And just look at what happened!"

A pang hit him when he heard those words screamed at Blake, recognizing them as a much more blunt version of what he told her a couple of hours earlier.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop the argument between the two, as he was the cause of it to begin with, Kaneki turned his eyes towards the other four watching it all go down them and found nothing other than reluctant gazes. He couldn't say he blamed them for being reluctant to intervene, as even he felt that Weiss's anger was definitely somewhat justified.

He couldn't deny that the fact if Blake had just forsaken her past ties with the White Fang from the very beginning, none of this would've happened. It was really just as simple as that. Yet, despite him knowing that, he couldn't bring himself to say that what just was entirely Blake's fault. No, it wasn't her fault that he ended up in this condition, nor did fault lie with that orange-haired girl from earlier. By habit, he almost blamed himself for it, but he couldn't even do that in the end.

The person at fault here, ironically enough, wasn't here at all. Fault belonged solely to the ones who attacked the docks: the White Fang, that man with the orange hair who he recognized to be Torchwick, and Neo. They were the ones who caused all of this. Trying to place blame in their own ranks wasn't going to get them anywhere, so he moved to act, despite knowing how long his odds were.

"Weiss, that's enough," Kaneki told his snowy-haired teammate, drawing the attention of everyone around him immediately.

"But-" Weiss tried to protest, but he killed it off before it could reach fruition.

"Weiss, that's enough," he reiterated. He intended to add a little more vehemence in his voice, but it only ended up coming out sounding extremely tired. At that moment, the heiress's expression shifted from one of anger to one of guilt, which in turn made him to feel a little guilty himself.

A palpable tension grew in between them as neither of them really knew how to proceed after that, but thankfully a certain blonde-haired loudmouth broke the silence between them.

"Short-stuff has a point," Yang piped in suddenly, speaking for the first time in the conversation. "I don't think right now is the best time for us to talk about this, especially after the past couple of days the two of them have had." She then proceeded to cross her arms over her chest and add, "I think we should just head back to Beacon for now and let the two of them rest up before we do anything else."

Weiss opened her mouth, probably to protest, but she closed a moment later and nodded reluctantly. "Fine," she stated, voice filled with reluctance as she crossed her arms over her chest and turned to walk away.

"Don't you two mind her," Yang told the two of them once Weiss looked to be far enough away, flashing them a reassuring smile as she did so. "She was just worried about the two of you, is all."

"Yeah, concerned," Blake shot back. The sarcasm in her voice wasn't lost to anyone present. "That's what she was." Kaneki tried to comfort her by once again tightening the grip he had on her arm, which elicited a tired sigh from the weary Faunus holding him up. "Thank you," she muttered under her breath, sending him a sideways glance-a glance that was accompanied by a smile that remained appreciative, despite the exhaustion it contained.

"Hm…" He heard a suspicious hum from Yang, which prompted both him and Blake to turn their attention towards the self-proclaimed bombshell. Upon turning towards her, the half ghoul found that the blonde was shifting her violet eyes between the both of them mischievously. "…Did I actually manage to call it?" She asked, most likely to no one in particular given her tone.

"Call what?" Ruby chimed in suddenly, voicing the question Kaneki was asking himself.

"Ah, nothing," Yang answered in a tone that failed to convey her supposed innocence. "Don't any of you mind me," she continued. "I was just thinking out loud, is all."

From the corner of his eye, Kaneki could've swore he saw that blonde Faunus from earlier shake his head disbelievingly before walking away. The snowy-haired half ghoul raised his eyebrow at the act, but decided that it was best not to question it.

_I wonder where they met him?_ He thought, tracking the fair-haired stranger's departure from the group. _Actually, where have they been meeting all of these new people anyways?_

"Hey, Ruby, Yang," he called out to the two who could answer that question, "do you two mind filling us in on what we missed while we were gone?"

* * *

Neo's legs were heavy from exhaustion, a fact that only made itself even more pronounced as she threw herself onto her bed. Haise…The moment she could take her mind off her aching limbs, she found herself thinking about the condition of her former partner. I blew it…she couldn't stop herself from thinking that as she lay there. A hand subconsciously reached its way up to where her heart beat in her chest and clenched at it.

That was probably her only chance…All she had needed to do was knock him out so she could drag him back to the compound, but, of course, absolutely nothing wanted to go according to how she planned it. Then again, it wasn't like she helped things along by threatening that friend of his.

She couldn't help but laugh inwardly at herself at at her own forgetfulness. He had always been like that. Overprotective to a fault. In the past, entire armies wouldn't stop him from trying to protect her. A detail that never failed to amuse her, especially since she had always been the one to save him whenever he got himself into trouble.

It was sweet though. To see the lengths he would go to keep her safe. There was one time where he actually did take on an entire army and, funnily enough, actually win!

I really did take him for granted, didn't I? That question replayed itself in her mind once more, immediately followed by the memory of how he reacted after she threatened his most recent attachment. A bitter taste pooled in her mouth she remembered that desperation being shown for someone other than her. It was still present now.

How dare she-she began to think, but was cut off when she heard a series of knocks landed against the giant piece of wood that lead into her room, which was immediately followed by sound of said door creaking open.

Neo didn't need to look over at the door to know who it was. There was only one person she knew who would be polite enough to knock before barging into a room.

"Neopolitan, how many times must I remind you of this?" As she thought, the one to knock on her door was none other than the undisputed leader of their little group of criminals, Cinder Fall. "Always report to me before you go off and rest."

Letting out a silent sigh, the tri-colored woman sat up in her bed and turned herself towards where her unequivocal leader's voice came from. She saw the raven-haired young woman standing in her doorway with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Sorry about that," Neo replied, trying to keep her exasperation to minimum. Clearing her throat, she gave a much more professional answer. "It was my impression that Torchwick's report would suffice for the both of us."

"I thought that as well," her leader began, "but I realized that I needed to hear your side of things when he told me, and I quote, 'that bug you got rid of came back with a vengeance' and left it at that."

Neo couldn't stop her eyes from shifting down towards the ground at that statement. "Haise isn't dead," she told her leader, her hands balled into tight fists.

"Haise?" Cinder's brows furrowed as she repeated the name Neo had given to her, her tone dripping with confusion all the while. "Are you referring to that boy I had you remove months ago?"

The tri-colored woman used every ounce of her willpower to stop herself from flinching in response to that question. She couldn't afford to look like she still felt anything for her former partner, especially in front of her leader. If she was going to get him back to where he belonged now, it was imperative that Cinder thought of him as a valuable piece to have.

"Yes," Neo replied with a nod of her head, forcing every ounce of malice she had left for the boy to the surface, doing so all in the in hope of sounding more convincing. "The little parasite somehow managed to survive, even after all I did to him."

Cinder gave no immediate response to that statement. All she did was cross one of her arms over her chest and cupped her chin with her free hand. "What exactly did Roman mean when he said that he 'came back with a vengeance'?"

It was now Neo's turn to take a moment to think about what sort of response she should give. She had absolutely no clue on how she should relay the past night's events to her leader, and even if she did, there was absolutely no way she could do it justice.

_Hm, maybe…_The tri-colored woman trailed of mentally as she finally came up with something that might just work. "Is there any possible way you could get into the surveillance system at the docks?" She asked her leader with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course," Cinder stated with a nod, her voice dripping with a strange mix of both wariness and intrigue. "Why do you think I allowed you and Torchwick to go there without proper disguises?"

"Good." A wry smirk crawled onto Neo's lips as she continued. "Because, trust me, it's something that needs to be seen to be believed."

* * *

Kaneki reached his one remaining hand up and used it to wipe away the blood that was trickling down from the corner of his mouth. A relieved sigh escaped him when he felt the grips of hunger finally lose their hold on him.

"Finished?" He heard someone directly behind him ask. Kaneki turned and glanced over in the direction he heard the voice coming from.

There, standing behind him with his arms crossed over his chest, was none other than Ozpin himself. "Yeah," he said with a slight nod of his head, right as the corpse of his meal evaporated into nothingness behind him.

"I heard from a certain someone that you caused quite the racket over at the docks this afternoon," Ozpin stated, walking towards him. "I even managed to see a few minutes of it through security cameras."

"And?" Kaneki asked, voice curt and lifeless. He turned away and stared fixedly at the now empty place where his meal had been.

"That kagune of yours," Ozpin continued, seemingly nonplussed by the emotion, or rather, lack thereof, the younger was showing towards the incident that took a good portion of his arm. "It looked different from the last time I saw it. Was that your-"

"Yeah, that was my kakuja," Kaneki interrupted. "Half of it, to be exact."

"Half?" The headmaster repeated. A curious undertone-one that was just barely noticeable-leaked into his voice as he spoke.

"My kakuja isn't fully developed yet," Kaneki explained, his voice retaining its curt and lifeless tone throughout the entire time he spoke. "And before you ask, I had absolutely zero control over it at the time. Even attempting it to use it was a mistake on my part."

"Why did you use it then?"

"You said you watched it didn't you? Doesn't that mean you should know the answer to that question?"

"Not all of it, I'm afraid. I saw what had caused the loss of your arm and what happened after it, but that's all."

Ozpin's response left Kaneki completely unable to respond. Mainly because he really didn't know how to. There was no doubt that a part of him wanted to tell the headmaster what happened on the docks, but another, equally as compelling part of him wanted to do the exact opposite of that and keep everything to himself for the time being.

Did he really want Ozpin knowing about Haise Sasaki? That was the question that plagued his mind and frustratingly enough, his mind continued to remain divided on the subject.

"Do you remember that woman I told you about a couple weeks back?" the artificially-made half ghoul asked, once he finally decided upon a route to take.

"I remember," Ozpin answered with the slightest nod of his head, his tone as simple as the response itself. "Did she make an appearance at the docks as well?"

"Mhm," Kaneki hummed back in affirmation. "I didn't want to risk losing to her when Blake was still fighting Torchwick, so at the time, I thought that using it would be worth the risk." After that, he shot a quick glance down towards the empty space that remained where the upper portion of his right arm used to be, letting out a bitter sigh at the sight of it. "And even though I'm relieved that no one other than myself got injured," he began, shaking his head tiredly, "I'd be lying to you if I said was happy with how everything turned out."

Ozpin opened his mouth, but a few moments later, he closed it again and opted to simply nod his head instead. Then, without saying another word, the headmaster turned on a heel and promptly began to make his way out of the room, leaving Kaneki alone once again.

Offhandedly, the snowy-haired half ghoul sent a momentary glance down at where his meal used to be before it disintegrated and finally released the grip his fingers had around his chin.

Unfortunately, no matter how much he trusted the man, Kaneki knew that he couldn't tell Ozpin about Haise Sasaki. In every scenario that played out in his head, the headmaster knowing of his body's previous owner only complicated things further.

Clearly, if he wanted everything to go as planned, he would need to keep every little aspect about it to himself for the time being. No one could know. Not Ozpin. Not Yang. Not Weiss. Not Ruby… Not even Blake could know. No matter how much he hated the fact.

What he had planned…the request he promised to fulfill…he needed to do so alone. He had no right to drag the people here at Beacon into his personal problems, especially after all they've done to help him up until this point.

Still, Kaneki couldn't deny the fact that he wanted them to help him with it. To shoulder some of the load that his task would put on his shoulders. The thought was so tantalizing, but he needed to deny himself that indulgence.

_At the very least, I won't be crossing into unknown territory by doing so, _he thought to himself, a wry smile crossing his features as he did so.

* * *

"Ugh, that girl…" Weiss growled under her breath, angrily stomping towards Kaneki's room. "I swear, when I get my hands on her…"

She couldn't believe it. Blake just got back from a three day long disappearance and, unbelievably, had the audacity to disappear on them again not even a day later!

Yang, who was striding alongside her, let out an audible sigh. "Oh, could you lay off the girl?" She asked, an obvious aggravation replacing the usual mirth in her voice. "I know that you wanted to talk to her and all, but at least let her get a good night's sleep before you start laying into her."

Weiss couldn't help but let out an indignant snort in response. "For your information, I wasn't planning on doing anything like that." Her reply was just as indignant.

"Yeah and I totally plan on believing you when you say that," Yang countered, a good amount of sarcasm in her voice.

"Well, could you really blame me for wanting to say something to her?" Weiss snapped back, unable to contain her growing frustration with the situation. "She and her reckless actions cost Kaneki an arm! Do you seriously expect me to not be angry with her?!"

Another exasperated sigh escaped from the blonde's mouth as she shook her head. "Look, I know that this may come as a surprise to you, but seeing the condition he was in earlier made me just as angry as you are." She stopped dead in her tracks, which prompted Weiss to do the same. "Hell, the moment I saw him covered in all that blood, I wanted to run over and ask who's heads needed smashing in."

"Then you of all people should understand why I'm so angry with her right now," Weiss huffed angrily, her brows furrowing as she glared at the blonde standing across from her. "She's the only reason he ended up in a situation like that to begin with. If she had just stayed calm and-"

"And whose fault was that?" Yang cut her off, causing all of the steam the heiress was building up to die down almost immediately, leaving her completely speechless. "Look," the blonde loudmouth let out another sigh and began speaking once more. "Dig deep enough and you can place blame on just about anything, as long as there's some sort of connection."

This once again stunned Weiss into silence. A few awkwardly quiet moments later, she found herself angling her head down towards the ground.

Yang let out her third sigh of the conversation at that and wordlessly started down the hallway again. Weiss moved to follow her a few moments later.

* * *

"Hm, this is definitely interesting…" Neo heard Cinder whisper under her breath, fiery amber eyes never leaving the screen in front of her. Despite knowing that she probably couldn't see her do so, Neo nodded back in response. Mainly because that was all she could manage to do, as her attention was completely taken by the video they were watching. "And you were never aware of these powers until now, correct?"

"Correct…" Neo replied, her first word in the entire conversation. She was initially going to say more, but she was forced to stop herself momentarily when she saw the explosive round get shot directly into Haise's face. Every part of her wanted to flinch when she saw him take the hit, so she was forced to stop that train of thought and focus everything she had on staying nonchalant.

Probably picking up on her sudden hesitation, Cinder immediately said, "Is there a problem?"

"No." Neo was quick to respond, as she didn't want to give anything away. "I was just pondering the reasoning behind him hiding such a thing from me."

That was a question she found herself asking quite frequently, as of late. They spent a good portion of their childhood and the last two years together, but he never once showed anything close to what he displayed during their last two encounters with each other.

There was always a chance that Haise acquired those powers sometime after she cut ties with him, but she knew that also meant that the opposite was possible as well. Truth be told, it terrified her to think about. To think that, he did have those powers for the entire time she knew him and just decided to not use them for whatever reason.

After what he heard him say to himself before he showcased his newest ability, it didn't take a lot to figure out why he kept it from her, but for him to never use it, even when she was in life-threatening danger… It meant that her former partner wasn't willing to risk using it for her sake, but he would for hers.

That Faunus he was with-the one he was so quick to try and protect with those powers when danger presented itself. So quick to jump towards her and wrap his arms around-

"**AGGGGGGHHHHHH!**"

Before she could finish that thought, a scream suddenly erupted from the monitor's speakers, cutting her off and forcing her attention back onto aforementioned screen.

There, hunched over in the barely held-together remains of the crane, stood Haise. His entire body was trembling uncontrollably as he clutched at his face with both of his black-tipped hands.

"**FUCK FUCK FUCK!**" The woman with three hair colors felt her hands subconsciously clench into tight fists when she heard her former partner let out such anguish-filled curses. She couldn't help but respond in that fashion, she had never heard him in so much pain before. "**It burns-my head, no everything. It feels like-**" As he mindlessly rambled that out, his trembling legs gave out under him and he fell to his knees. "**-Agh, why won't it stop?!**"

"That explosion would've killed any normal man," Cinder noted idly, eyes never leaving the screen as she continued to watch the trembling Haise. "Endurance is clearly a strength of his."

_Haise…_Neo could feel her fingernails digging into the leather of her gloves as she listened to him ramble in pain. Pain, she was sure, that was unbearable to have to go through. At that moment, every single emotionally-driven part of her wanted to be able to reach a hand through the screen that lay between them, so she could provide her former partner with some form of comfort.

"**I can't stop here…**" A second after he said that, the very audible sound of bullheads filled the air, drawing the snowy-haired young man's head out of his hands and towards where the sounds were coming from. "**I need to… Blake, I need to save her save her save her-Blake!**"

_Blake?_ Neo felt a stab of bitterness in her heart when she heard the amount of desperation that name was uttered with. _So, that's the name of his little companion, huh? Interesting…_

As if to further emphasize the desperation he felt, Haise suddenly placed his feet back down under him and launched himself forwards from where he stood, so quickly that it seemed like he just disappeared into thin air.

Anticipation welled up inside Neo as she watched Haise dash off. Finally, she would be able to see what happened to him after she left and ease her worries.

When the camera feed switched to another one, she found herself looking down at a group of three teenage girls-one of which being that girl Haise was being so protective of-as they looked up at something up in the air. Assumedly, they were looking at the bullheads Neo heard earlier.

"That one in the red…" Cinder began suddenly, drawing Neo from her fixation with the screen. "She's the girl who interfered with the robbery Torchwick staged three months ago."

"So, that's the girl who took Torchwick's ego down a peg?" The tri-colored woman couldn't help but ask, the corners of her lips curling up into a smile at the thought. "If that's the company he keeps nowadays, it's no wonder Haise has gotten more annoying than he was before."

As she said that, all hell broke loose on the docks. Floating swords suddenly popped out from a pack on the orange-haired girl's back pulled two of the three bullheads down with very little effort on the part of the wielder.

"Hm…" Cinder hummed to herself as she narrowed her eyes at the screen.

Neo let out an amused snort in response to her leader's actions. _Yeah, my thoughts exactly. How in the world is she able to do that?_ Normally, she would've taken a moment to deliberate on the subject more, but she was forced to push it to the back of her mind when the one thing she was looking for appeared on screen.

From out of nowhere, Haise burst in from the edge of the screen and latched onto a bullhead as it tried to pull away from the combat area, using the two centipede-like tendrils on his back to pry the cockpit open before jumping inside. What came after he jumped inside was the sound of someone screaming out in a mix of terror and pain, as the vehicle slowly spun down to the concrete below with a loud screeching noise.

_What the-_Neo thought, but was cut off when she saw her former partner emerge from the cockpit. The upper portion of his body shimmered in the light of the already setting sun, due to the clearly fresh blood that had somehow made its way onto his clothes. It didn't take long for her to figure out what happened inside of that cockpit, especially after hearing the things he said to her that day.

Then, if that wasn't enough to make her want to lose her lunch, he raised his head after saying something that resembled the instability that he displayed to her earlier, and the camera just so happened to be at the right angle to catch him revealing his face to the world. It was charcoal black, charred beyond recognition-only the pale mask and a measly patch of skin near it remained.

"Well, that doesn't look good at all," Cinder commented to herself offhandedly, her tone remaining the same, despite the grievous injury that Haise had just sustained. Neo felt one of her eyebrows twitch when she heard the flippancy being shown towards aforementioned injury. She thought about replying, but decided against it, knowing that anything that it would probably come out with a fair amount of irritation. So, instead, she kept her focus on the screen in front of her and pushed her aggravation to the farthest corner of her mind.

"Yeah, he should probably go and get that checked out," she remarked, as snidely as she could manage at the moment-a task that was made even harder with the maelstrom of emotion brewing in her heart. "One of the only things that made him even remotely tolerable was how cute he was." There was more truth in that statement than she liked to admit. If she had a lien for every time she gave her former partner slack just because he looked like a kicked puppy, she would have probably been as rich as the Schnee family by now.

Just as she said that, however, something began happening to whatever remained of Haise's face. Little black fibers were emerging from the charcoal-like remains and connecting with one another, and soon a good portion of his face was back. Clear and as white as porcelain, almost as if nothing had happened to it to begin with.

_How…?_ Neo couldn't help but ask herself that, despite knowing full well that she shouldn't be surprised by things like that anymore, especially after all of the other stuff she'd seen Haise do. As she watched his face grow back to its former glory, a pang hit her heart when she a realization crossed her mind. _I guess this just confirms it. It all made sense, now that she knew all of the factors going into it. Of course, he would be able to survive being stabbed if he can recover from burns like that in less than a couple seconds._

While she thought that, Haise suddenly burst into action, attacking the group of girls in front of him, or more specifically, the one with the orange hair.

The two clashed against one another. His two tentacles and her many swords collided until Haise managed to find himself an opening, but was denied of getting his prize when a crimson blur suddenly barreled into the young man with the speed of a bullet, knocking him off balance. This bought 'Blake' enough time to wrap some sort of ribbon around his midsection, pinning his arms to his sides.

As he tried to struggle out of his binds, the girl with the orange hair, or 'Penny', as she heard the youngest of the girls call her, capitalized immediately. She sent sword after sword his way, but the blades-the same ones that were sharp enough to pierce the hull of a bullhead-bounced off of his body as if they were plastic, forcing him ever so slowly to his knees. The sight reminded her of their days back in the orphanage when he'd be beaten up by those bullies, because the barrage was just that one-sided.

_How are those things not impaling him? _Neo couldn't help but ask herself that as she watched the onslaught. Of course, she was ecstatic that he wasn't being turned into a pincushion, but it still confused her to no end.

Seemingly unpleased with the amount of punishment she'd dealt out to Neo's former partner, 'Penny' gathered a group of her floating swords together and began spinning them around in a circle. This confused both of the people watching the feed, making the both of them question the reasoning behind the action.

Only a second later after began to speculate, the little speck of light expanded and shot out from the group of blades, heading towards the downed form of Haise with deadly intent.

Neo could only watch on in horror at what happened next. Haise, in recognition of the danger the beam heading towards him posed, tried to dodge off to his right. Unfortunately, he wasn't anywhere fast enough to outrun the speed of light and got hit in the side as a result, prompting him to be knocked off balance and slam into the corner of a shipping container. Neo internally cringed when she heard the loud crack that rang through the air when his head met metal, and that cringe only intensified when she saw the overall damage that had been dealt to him.

His left arm was completely gone. A large, cauterized hole was now present in his abdomen. Enough of his blood leaked out from where his head met metal, that it managed to soak into nearly all of the white in his hair.

Neo was at a loss for words. She could only stare at the bloodied form of her former partner as he sat there, slumped limply against the twisted metal of the container he collided with. She waited for the black fibers from earlier to appear once more and erase all of damage, but nothing like that happened.

Ten seconds passed by-though they felt more like hours to her-and the only thing Haise managed to do was continue to lie where he was motionlessly. She felt the need to scream at him to stand up, to raise his head, to do anything other than lie there, well up inside her. All she wanted was some sign that he wasn't dead…

Her already balled fists tightened even further, so much so that she wouldn't have been surprised to see that her fingernails had somehow managed to dig through her leather gloves.

_Don't you dare die on me!_ she screamed at the screen mentally, being so caught up in what she was witnessing that she completely forgot that what she was seeing had been pre-recorded.

Then, almost as if he heard her pleading, Haise said something. It was said at the volume of a whisper, but the scene around him was so deadly quiet that she was just able to make it out. "**Wha…what do you want from me? Wha…?**"

Neo could hear the other three who were present talking to each other, but she cared so little about what they had to say that it wasn't even audible to her. All of her attention was focused on Haise and how he was already pushing himself up to his feet.

"**This body is…mine…mine mine mine mine mine!**"

"What…?" Neo felt her mismatched eyes narrow in confusion when she heard him say that.

"**Need…need to save…**" he continued on in his rambling. "…**Manager…Irimi…Koma…have to get to, need to save…going to…can't-won't let them be taken away from me…**"

_Who in the world is he talking about?_ She asked herself, watching Haise fall down pitifully to his knees. Those names he'd just listed weren't ones she'd heard him ever utter before. Yet, by the despair in his voice, it was clear that they meant a lot to him, whoever they were. He must've met them sometime he left the orphanage. _Neo nodded to herself. Yeah, that's the only explanation that makes sense._

There was nothing Haise wouldn't share with her, after- "**S-so beautiful…**" he stuttered weakly, staring blankly out in front of him. "**The Reaper, he's standing in a field of flowers.**" The more the snowy-haired young man spoke, the more Neo found herself confused. "**He…he's razed a coffee field to the ground. A field that's sown on beloved corpses, but still I-so why…?**" His voice broke down into sobs, and the sound made her heart drop. "**Why do I still find that sight to be so beautiful?**"

After that, his forehead met with the ground as he prostrated himself, clutching at his temple with his one remaining hand. "**It…it hurts so much…**" Haise sobbed as his body began to shake with the force of his tears. "**My toes-my fingers-they're completely numb…I can't feel them at all.**"

When he said that, the memory of him pressing down on his finger and cracking replayed in her mind. For whatever reason, she couldn't help but shake the feeling that two were connected somehow, and then she heard him say something that made everything a little bit clearer. "**Stop…please stop…please stop taking them…I-I can't take watching them regrow again. **"

_Regrow?_ Neo repeated that word to herself over and over again, but no matter how many times she said it, she just couldn't manage to wrap her head around what he was mumbling.

Haise proceeded to say something that only served to further drive in the point she was actively trying to avoid. "**N-no, please don't…p-please don't stick that in there…**" He screamed, so abruptly that it took every ounce of Neo's composure to not jump. "**Get it out, get it out, get it out! It keeps clawing and biting at everything! Get it out, get it out of my head!**"

"_**It hurts like you wouldn't believe…I should know. I've had one stuck in my ear, after all."**_

Everything fell into place for Neo after she heard Haise say that. It only made sense. From the sudden change in his personality to his new choice in hair color. What else could have explained them better than that?

"Hm, is he implying what I think he's implying?" She heard Cinder ask that question, but she could only nod numbly.

The realization caused her heart to hurt for what felt like the umpteenth time. For something like that to have happened to someone like him…It just reminded her of how unfair the world was at times. Someone as kind as he was didn't deserve to have to go through something like that.

Neo couldn't help but laugh inside at her own hypocrisy. Here she was, lamenting on how Haise didn't deserve such a fate, when she herself did something to him that he definitely didn't deserve just a few months ago.

"You seem to be at a loss for words," Cinder commented, a hint of suspicion in her voice that she very clearly meant for Neo to hear. "Are you actually feeling sorry for him?" Neo no longer had the strength to answer after all that she learned and, thankfully, Cinder made no attempt to call her out on her silence, for whatever reason.

And so, with nothing better to do, the tri-colored woman shifted her attention back onto the screen and was immediately shocked at what she saw. At some point, 'Blake' had managed to pry herself from where she stood and over to where Haise lay, trembling violently as he clutched at his temples.

"**Mother…**" Neo could feel her eyes narrowing at the screen when she heard him make mention of his mother-the very woman who had first instilled that idiotic thought-process into his mind and made him the pushover he was for the majority of his life. "…**I don't need it… I don't need it anymore, I'm sorry…**"

Neo hated absolutely everything about the woman. She hated that stupid mantra of her's, and how it manipulated her only child into thinking that it was okay to never defend himself. She hated how she left her son all alone in the world, just because she was too weak to cut ties with a parasite. She hated the fact that her son would sing her praises as if she was some sort of angel among men, despite-

"**I…don't need it…I don't need it anymore, so please…please don't hit me again…I'm sorry.**"

_W-what?_ Neo couldn't believe her ears. _Haise's mother…s-she beat him?_ That went against literally everything he'd ever said about her. _All of those good things he said about her…Those were all just lies?_

Memories flooded into her mind-the same memories she recalled during their earlier fight. His choice in books and how he was always able to take all of that punishment without shedding a single tear. When she first noticed them, she had always thought they were just strange anomalies in his character that could never be explained, but it seems that was actually the farthest thing from the truth. They weren't unexplainable at all. That was the reason.

Neo was so caught up in trying to piece together the wreckage that was her mind, that she nearly missed what was happening on-screen. However, she was able to compose herself just in time to hear another verbal bomb being dropped on her.

At some point, while she was completely caught up in her thoughts, 'Blake' and Haise had come together, and pulled each other into an embrace. Neo could feel a pang of envy hit her heart at the sight. "**Why…why…why didn't I want to die?**"

He asked that question, though the inflection of it didn't imply that he was looking for an answer. It was more like he already knew the answer, and was only asking it as a build up to it, which was exactly what he did.

"**I…**" he began, "…I just don't want to be hurt anymore."

At that moment, Neo realized that she was definitely being a hypocrite.

* * *

**Yang couldn't keep herself from smiling at what she was currently looking at. Everything about what she was looking at made her want to jump up and down like her little sister locked inside a weapon store, but unfortunately, she couldn't do so without giving away her position.**

Why was keeping her position a secret a priority? Well, what she was looking at was as fragile as a thin piece of glass and would shatter like one if the two involved were to find out she was there watching.

"What exactly are you-?" Weiss began to ask, but was cut off when a gloved hand was clamped over her mouth.

Not one who appreciated being cut off in such a fashion, she shot a questioning glare her silencer's way and was immediately met with a nod that was aimed directly towards the door next to them, which lay just a bit open. She didn't quite understand what the gesture meant, so she narrowed her icy eyes at her teammate, but all she got back as a response was another arm being wrapped around her waist and a strong pull away from the door.

Weiss immediately began to protest, but all of her effort turned out to be all for naught as the blonde easily overpowered the snowy-haired heiress, dragging her away from the door to Kaneki's room without much effort.

When Yang felt that they were far away enough from the door, she removed her gloved hand away from her teammate's mouth, which prompted the heiress to let out an extremely irritated cry. "What in the world was that?! I thought we were going to bring Blake back to our room?!"

"Yeah, we were," Yang conceded, a smirk still prominent on her lips as she continued to drag her teammate away, "but I'd never be able to live with myself if I broke up a moment like that, y'know?"

"What moment?!" Weiss demanded as she continued to try and squirm out of the blonde's tight clutches.

The smile Yang's face grew even wider as she replied, "Oh, nothing. Just something I've been waiting for quite awhile now. Besides, after all those two have been through, those two definitely need the sleep."

* * *

**Kaneki blinked owlishly at the person before him. Not a moment afterwards, a pair of amber eyes blinked back in response.**

"Blake?" He called, removing the towel from his still damp hair and allowed it to lay limply on his shoulders. Said teammate lifted herself up from her position sitting against the wall his bed was pushed against. "I thought you said you were-"

"Yeah, I know what I said," the dark-haired Faunus cut him off, her voice still managing to sound biting, despite the clear exhaustion present in it. "But…" She trailed off, her voice waning in strength. "...But I'd just rather not right now."

The snowy-haired half ghoul could only furrow his brows in confusion at the statement. "You do know that you're not going to be able to put off talking to Weiss forever, right? I mean, you're going to need to sleep eventually, and you two do share a room."

"No, I hadn't noticed," she shot back sarcastically with a roll of her eyes, which prompted a mirthful smirk to grow on his lips in response. "Look, I'm just really not in the mood to deal with all of that right now." She reached a hand up to massage the bridge of her nose.

Not knowing how to refute her point after the past couple days, Kaneki decided to relent and nod along in agreement, which elicited a tired-sounding sigh from Blake. After that brief admission of exhaustion, she opened her mouth in an attempt to say something, but nothing came out. She just closed it again and allowed her head to fall on the sole pillow on his bed, sighing again.

After seeing that, Kaneki momentarily thought about saying something, but ultimately decided against it in favor of going over to the bed and sitting himself down next to it, resting his weight on its frame and his head on top the mattress.

An indeterminate amount of time passed as the two sat there in complete silence. As he lay there next to Blake, Kaneki's mind subconsciously began to wander back to the events of the past few days. It didn't take him back to all of the bad things that happened like how one might expect. He began to think about the things that ultimately brought the both of them here.

The two of them had gotten closer over the past couple of days. That much was obvious. If their closeness could be plotted out on a graph, he was sure that there would've been an upward spike in the already steadily-rising line right around all of this started, and he didn't know how he felt about that. There was a part of him, a very large part of him, that was happy about the fact, and wanted for the two of them to grow closer. Kaneki cared about Blake a lot, he couldn't and wouldn't deny that, but with that care came the obvious worries.

Did he really want her getting close to something, to someone like him? Someone who could very well lose control one day and devour her? Someone who could very well disappear one day without a single word? Someone who attracted tragedies to those associated with him like a magnet?

All of those worries piled up and forced the very thought into his mind. _If I really do care about her, then shouldn't I be doing everything in my power to keep her away from me?_ He asked himself, not as a question that needed answering, but as a reaffirmation of a similar thought that he remembered having and acting upon in the past.

It was right after Kaneki's escape from Jason and Aogiri Tree. He had just informed his friends of his departure from Anteiku. Banjou offered his help to him and Tsukiyama soon did the same, but he needed to stop the last person from offering before she could do so.

It was mainly because that person was one Touka Kirishima, and the only other person to ever elicit such emotions from him. Coming with him would surely bring an end to the life she built at Anteiku. It was as close to human as a ghoul could get, and he knew how hard she worked for that. So he just couldn't allow her to throw it away like that.

Kaneki would be lying if he said he liked doing it, though. A very large, very compelling part of him wanted to have her come along. He never got the chance to say it to her in person, but her presence had always been calming to him. In a world that was as turbulent as his at the time, the one thing he wanted was something that made him feel normal again, for at least a tiny bit, and she would always be able to provide that in spades. The last thing he wanted to do was leave that, but he couldn't allow her to destroy everything she'd worked for like that. So he made sure she stayed.

Kaneki ran his hand through his hair as he used that past experience to analyze the situation he currently found himself in and find the best course of action to go with. However, he found himself replaying _that _scene over in his head the moment he tried doing so.

He thought of the first time he and Touka saw each other since the day he first left. It certainly left a lasting impression on him. Getting called out for what you were as a person tended to do that, after all, especially when the person doing it was as spot on as she was.

Touka had essentially called Kaneki on his self-sacrificing nature-his desire to protect all of them, that was actually just an act fueled of his own selfishness, not any sort of selflessness. It astounded him how easily she caught onto his real motivations-motivations that he himself didn't know about, or just didn't want to acknowledge at the time.

The fact was, Ken Kaneki was nothing more than a selfish person at heart. It was a different brand of selfishness, but selfishness by any other name was still selfishness in the 's why he found it necessary to try and affirm that thought in his head earlier. He couldn't bring himself to fully fall into the same cycle with what Touka said still lingering in his mind.

The half ghoul couldn't help but laugh a bit at his current situation. Earlier, when it was just Ozpin in the same room as him, he was able to commit himself to what he had planned. Now, that Blake was there with him, he was getting cold feet.

_Dammit…_he cursed to himself, idly turning his gaze on to the source of his confliction, feeling a sharp pang reach his heart when he saw her face. It seemed that, at some point while he was in the midst of his inner conflict, she had fallen asleep.

For what felt like an eternity, he marveled at the girl who lay before him, reveling in her slumber. He was so caught up in his reverie that he didn't notice that his hand was slowly inching towards Blake until he felt it make contact with one of her hands, and before he could even realize what was happening, her hand twitched back before slowly sliding itself over his own.

An all too familiar warmth filled him after that, which was then immediately followed by whatever conviction he had in his plan slipping away into obscurity.

At that moment, he remembered something that he realized in that delusion of his earlier.

That warmth from earlier…

He couldn't help but smile to himself as he remembered that, deep down, Ken Kaneki was nothing more than a selfish person and that selfishness remained the same, no matter what form it decided to take on.

**-Chapter End-**

Well, NTR is still a trash fetish…

Oh, and FineChyna says hi. Y'all should go say hi back. She worked hard to finish editing this as fast as she could. The least that she deserves.


	15. Chapter 13: Nurturer's Paradox

Ello, men and women, and welcome to the latest installment of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant. Under normal circumstances, I would've put something comedic here, but I, unfortunately, have an agenda I need to fulfill, so you're going to have to deal with me being serious (somewhat).

So, first things first… Recently, this story has finally reached one of the landmarks that I've dreamed of hitting ever since I started writing on this site: a follower count that reaches the thousands. You all can't believe the grind I had to go through just waiting for that number to hit four digits… At one point, it was stuck on the number 999 for, like, three whole days. The anticipation was killing me.

Next things next, if aren't already aware of it, I started writing a new story. One that's simply named: **TG-R: Prism**. It's basically an off-shoot of this story, where I delve into content that I cut from the main story for whatever reason, alternate plot lines, any side stories and also… *shifts eyes side to side warily* any lemons I decide to write. So, if any of those things interest you at all, then go check it out and look out for more content on it. I already have a five-thousand word chapter up, which contains a good amount of action and bloodshed.

Last things last, my beta-reader, FineChyna, has started her own Tokyo Ghoul/RWBY crossover. Please do me a favor and check it out. She's told me what to expect from it in the future and I think that it could really go places. It's called **Glass Lilies**, if you want some more quality TG/RWBY content, go check it out.

Also, I should probably tell you all before you start bitching about it in the reviews, she never asked me to give her a shout out, or anything like that. She was actually very adamant that I not do so. So much so, that she threatened to deal out some sort of punishment to me if I did. So… um, yeah. If I don't update in the next two months, you know what happened to me.

Anyways, let's get this story started while I'm still riding the high I got from hitting a thousand followers!

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I'm really sick and tired of having to come up with things to put here. So, that's why I'm not going to put anything here.

**-Chapter 13: Nurturer's Paradox-**

Kaneki took a deep breath through his nostrils, reveling in the smell of the fresh, clean air that only the forest could provide. He smiled contentedly, letting out the same breath. _When was the last time I did something like this?_ The half ghoul asked himself, staring up at the endless expanse of clear blue that lay up above him. An amused smirk crept on to his lips as he soon found himself answering his own question. _However long it's been, it's been way too long._

Kaneki normally wasn't one to actively to search out alone time, but it had become rather hard to find some over the past few months, and even he needed some every once in awhile.

_I should bring a book with me next time I come here,_ he noted idly as he took a moment to shut his eyes and just bask in the serenity of it all. _God knows I'm going to be spending a lot of time out here until my arm grows back._

That was the plan that was given to him by Ozpin. He would be excused from all classes until either one of two criteria were met: either his arm fully regenerated, or a week passed without any sign that it could. Until then, he would be free to do anything he wanted, as long as it didn't involved a classmate or teacher that didn't already know of his ghoul nature. This left him with a lot of time to kill until his team got out of class. And unfortunately for him, that point was still several hours away as of the moment.

So, with nothing better to do, Kaneki repositioned his head on his forearm and allowed himself to be dragged down into sleep.

* * *

For some inexplicable reason, an overwhelming sense of dread welled up inside Kaneki's chest. It was a feeling he'd felt many times before, but this time it was completely different, mainly because there was absolutely no context for it. One moment, he was lying on a cliffside overlooking the Emerald Forest, reveling in the peaceful and quiet atmosphere it provided; the next, his chest felt like it was ready to cave in.

_Wha-what the hell?!_ A million questions raced through his mind as he tried to force his eyes open, only to find that his eyelids absolutely refused to budge. It was almost as if there were some sort of outside force keeping them closed against his will.

"Excuse me."

A voice, one that sounded vaguely familiar to the Kaneki, called out to him. He instinctively stiffened at the sound of it. _That voice…_ he thought, his mind filling with even more questions. _Why does it sound so familiar? Who—?_

"Excuse me…" The same voice cut off that train of thought. "Little boy, can I ask you a question?"

Kaneki was about to open his mouth to protest, but quickly realized that his mouth was also being extremely uncooperative. _Fuck!_ He cursed angrily as he fought against whatever invisible chains bound him into paralysis. _Why the hell can't I speak?!_

As if doing so just to spite him, an answer slipped out from between his lips; however, it wasn't one he consented to giving. "Um, sure, go ahead. I don't know if I'm going to be that much help to you, though."

_That voice… _He recognized it almost immediately and felt the pounding in his chest lighten, just a bit. _Is this another one of Haise's memories? It has to be… Why else would my voice be so high-pitched?_

"You're going to be fine." Now that his panic had been subsided significantly, Kaneki was able to calm down and analyze the voice that was speaking to him. Almost immediately, he recognized that it most likely belonged to an adult woman. "The question is far from being a difficult one."

"Ah, o-okay then." He felt himself subconsciously nod as he unwillingly answered the question. "Go ahead and ask then."

"Is your name is Haise Sasaki?" As she asked that, Kaneki felt a wave of foreign confusion well up inside of him. His eyebrows furrowed, again without his consent, before his eyes slowly opened, revealing a pair of strangely blurry legs that were completely covered by long, black boots. Looking up, he found himself staring at an equally blurry face staring down at him. He couldn't completely make out what her expression was, due to whatever was obstructing his vision, but he could just somehow tell that she had been frowning at him impatiently.

The young Haise whose body he was currently inhabiting, most likely not knowing how else to answer an adult's question, nodded. "Um, yeah, that's me. Do you need something from me, Miss?"

"Why…" The woman trailed off, her impatient frown shifting over to one of clear confusion."Why are you crying?"

The younger version of Haise was more than ready to deflect the attempt to try and pry into his personal life. "D-don't worry about me Miss, I'm fine," he stated, wiping away some of the tears obscuring his vision with the sleeve of his shirt, eyes subconsciously turning down towards the floor after he did so. This made it impossible for him to see the woman's face. "I just took a nasty fall out of the tree, is all."

"You fell out of a tree without receiving a single bruise?" The woman countered. This, apparently, shocked the younger Haise, most likely because he was fully expecting the woman to just let the issue go, just like how all of the other caretakers would.

"U-uh—" he began to stutter out a response, but the woman cut him off before he could get out an answer.

"Does it have something to do with that girl I saw stomping away from here a couple of minutes ago?" The woman's question hit the nail right on the head, the accuracy leaving Haise completely speechless, which was a detail that the woman didn't fail to notice. "It does, doesn't it?"

Left without any other path to take, the young boy was forced to nod his head and answer truthfully. "Yeah."

The woman sighed, which didn't surprise Kaneki at all, but her next words did. "Wow, you kids sure are growing up fast these days. Not even nine years old yet and you're already getting into a lovers' spat."

Kaneki felt a familiar warmth grow on Haise's face as he stuttered back a response. "W-w-what? The two of us aren't anything like that!"

The woman let out a loud laugh-one that only made Haise blush even more. "Calm down, I was only joking," she told him, still coming off the tail end of the laugh.

"A-a-ah, s-s-sorry!" The warmth on the young boy's cheeks only worsened as his stuttering did. "I-I w-w-was just—"

The woman let out another laugh, but this time it was noticeably less powerful. "Come on, didn't I just tell you to relax? Calm down. I'm not gonna bite, I swear."

Kaneki quickly felt his mouth open once more. Knowing his younger self, he knew that Haise was probably going to try and apologize again, but before he could let another wave of stutters flow out from his mouth, the stranger before him cut off.

"Are you seriously going to apologize again?" She asked him, before letting out an impatient sigh. Kaneki felt his eyes widen at the sudden change in the woman's tone. At first, she spoke to him in a calm and understanding way-the same way one would expect the stereotypical mother to speak-but now, her tone was sharp and impatient. It was almost as if the earlier her had never been there to begin with-as if it was a figment of his imagination-which surprised him a great deal because everything she just did just seemed so genuine. "Right after I just told you it was alright?"

A foreign sense of fear suddenly spiked up inside of Kaneki when he heard the change in tone. It mixed with the already present feeling of suspicion that had been in him, ever since the woman appeared.

No doubt fearing a tongue lashing if he were to make a sound, Haise kept his mouth firmly shut and lowered his head even further, as if doing so would magically make his aggregator disappear.

Probably sensing the fear she instilled into him, the woman immediately went to perform damage control, but her attempt wasn't a very convincing one, since her tone sounded more tired than it did apologetic. "Look, I didn't mean to snap—"

"N-no, it's fine," Haise said, attempting to calm the woman's worries, even though he wasn't completely sure if they were genuine or not. There was just something about having a full grown adult woman expressing guilt towards him that just didn't sit right with Haise-a detail that didn't surprise Kaneki at all, given that the young boy didn't know a woman of any age who would actually do so. "I was just, uh, surprised by it, is all."

Kaneki felt no deceit coming from the memory's owner as that was said, which confirmed to him that what his younger counterpart was saying to be the truth, and not some attempt to try and get the unknown woman to calm down. Truth be told, he couldn't blame his dark-haired counterpart for being shocked by all that was going on. At that age, he'd probably be just as surprised.

For a few moments, the stranger didn't speak a word in reply. Instead, all she did was stand there for awhile, before eventually letting out a quiet sigh.

At first, Kaneki took the sigh as a sign that she was going to walk away, but was almost immediately proven wrong when he noticed that the footsteps he expected to hear weren't moving away from him like he had anticipated, but were moving to close the short distance between the two of them instead.

Instinctively looking up to see what the woman was doing, Kaneki found Haise staring at the cobblestone wall that stood next to the tree he was sitting under. Blinking at the empty space before him, Kaneki felt a foriegn wave of confusion wash over him, lasting until the second he felt something set itself down right next to him.

Head shooting over to where he felt the vibrations came from, both Haise and Kaneki were finally treated with their first good look of the woman they had been talking to. Haise blinked at the woman owlishly, but inside his mental prison, Kaneki's eyes widened at what he saw.

After seeing that she had Haise's attention, the woman opened her mouth, probably to say something to him, but whatever it was, never reached Kaneki's ears. Another voice suddenly came from where the woman sat, instantly knocking the lone intruder clean out of the memory and back into the present.

* * *

"Wake up!"

The moment Kaneki's eyes were pried open, he was immediately met with a mess of long blonde hair-and underneath, a face that had the cheekiest of grins spread across it.

"Morn-ing!" Yang singsonged the moment she saw his eyes snap open.

"Um…" The half ghoul blinked owlishly at his teammate, who was lying across from him, her head propped up on one of her hands. "Good morning?"

"Good to see that you've finally decided to wake up, sleeping beauty," Yang teased, suddenly shooting to her feet. "C'mon, the two of us need to get a moving," she told him, waving her hand in a 'get up' motion. "The other three are waiting for us at the room."

"Yeah…sure," Kaneki replied, moving to sit up. He reached a hand up to drag his fingers through his hair. "Just give me a second to, uh…to, uh, regain my bearings."

Yang immediately adopted a frown. "You alright?"

"Yeah," he answered, nodding. "I'm fine." He shook his head to try and dislodge the cobwebs from his brain. "You just, uh, caught me in the middle of a dream, is all."

"A good dream?"

A bit of a chuckle escaped from his mouth as he moved to pick himself up off the ground. "I'm not quite sure, really."

"Hm, well, that definitely didn't sound like you were trying to hide something from me at all," Yang replied, crossing her arms over her chest, her tone dripping with an all too familiar sarcasm. "So, I'm just going to completely drop the subject without questioning a single thing."

Kaneki couldn't help but laugh at that response. "Hey now," he said, voice full of mirth, "after all that I told you during my first days here, I think I deserve to be able to keep some secrets from you guys."

"Secrets, you say?" His ever-bombastic teammate perked up when he said that. "Could you possibly be talking about what you did on the day you went on that 'errand' a few days ago?"

"What do you mean?" Kaneki once again blinked owlishly at the girl before him.

"Oh, I just happened to hear from a mutual friend of our's that you happened to cross one another's paths while you were out. I was wondering what all that was about."

"I'm still not following you… Are you talking about the time I ran into Velvet a few days ago?" He asked, his tone confused. "How do you even know about that? Did she say something to you about it?"

"Well, I did say that it was 'mutual friend', didn't I?" She asked him, her tone cheeky and matter-of-fact. "And, it's not like you're in the top ten of any popularity polls at school right now, right?"

Kaneki could only let out a sheepish chuckle in response to that very clear stab at his person. "Yeah," he agreed, scratching at the back of his head. "Wait, how did something like that even come up in conversation anyways?"

"Oh, she came up to us in Oobleck's class today and asked where you were," Yang explained, her smile growing a tad bit bigger as she spoke. "She said something about wanting to say goodbye to you before she left on her mission."

"Ah, really?" Kaneki asked, leaving the guilt that stabbed his heart when he heard that on full display.

"Yeah, you should've seen her face when we told her that you were holed up in the infirmary," Yang stated, snickering a bit. "It was so freaking adorable!" The blonde clasped her hands together. "Her eyes got really wide and she started asking us if you were okay. Her ears even started to droop a bit!"

_Damn,_ Kaneki cursed to himself, his mind quickly going to work, thinking up ways to make it up to his rabbit-eared friend when she got back. Still, despite his guilt, he couldn't help but smile a bit when the mental image of that event popped up in his head.

"But, now that I think about it, Blake's face when she heard that you and Velvet spent a day together was pretty adorable too," his teammate suddenly added, for no apparent reason. "For a second, her eyes got all big and then immediately tried hiding it by going into that mode."

Kaneki was initially confused as to what Yang was talking about when she said 'that mode', but a moment later, he soon realized what she was referring to. There were times where Blake would act completely against her nature. It happened every once in awhile, whenever she got really, really irritated, but the change was so drastic at times that it almost felt like he was talking to a completely different person.

"Ah, really?" Kaneki couldn't help but let that question slip from his mouth.

"Yep." Yang nodded. "She even started to mumble things under her breath. Said something along the lines of 'is that why his clothes smelled washed?', I think."

Kaneki couldn't help but blink owlishly in response to that. Not knowing how the two correlated with one— _Ugh, dammit._

* * *

"Hey, Yang," Kaneki called out to his teammate as the two of them continued to make their way to where they were supposed to meet the rest of their team. "Could I ask you a question?"

Yang, who was walking slightly in front of him, glanced back over her shoulder at him. "Go right ahead, short-stuff. What do you need from big sister Yang?"

"But I'm two years older than you," Kaneki mumbled, before moving on to the question he was going to ask. "Anyways, why'd you guys decide to meet at my room? I thought we'd all be meeting at yours like we usually do."

"Team JNPR," she answered simply. "Didn't want to risk having them see you by accident."

"Oh, alright then." It was now his turn to answer something simply. "Any other reason you're just not telling me?"

"Well, I wasn't supposed to tell you this, but…" Yang trailed off as she put an index finger up to her lips, which made her give off an air of deep contemplation, "…we all sort of thought that you wouldn't want to leave your room."

"Huh? What gave you that impression?" he asked, genuinely not knowing what lead the four of them to that conclusion.

"Cut us some slack, will you?" She said, her voice harboring a mock defensiveness to it. "It's not like you've proven to be the most outgoing person in the world. We all just kind of thought that you'd rather spend the day in your room then out of it."

"True…" Kaneki conceded with a sideways nod of the head. "But still, I find your readiness to jump to that conclusion rather disheartening."

"Ah, you shouldn't worry about it too much," his teammate reassured him. "You being an almost shut-in makes us symmetrical personality wise."

The snowy-haired half ghoul raised an eyebrow. "What exactly does that mean?"

"Well, just think about it. Ruby and I are pretty outgoing; you and Blake are both homebodies; and Weiss's an in-betweener. Together, we have the base for a fully-functioning democracy!"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Kaneki replied, letting out a quiet chuckle. "Though I can't help but feel like that's not the only reason…"

"What?" Yang let out an unconvincing gasp of shock. "Me? Lie to you? Never?!"

"…You could at least try to fool me," Kaneki muttered to himself, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Hey, I wouldn't be much of a role model if I lied to my younger brother like that, now would I?"

A full blown laugh escaped from Kaneki in response that statement. He didn't know when exactly Yang took it upon herself to act like an 'older sister' to him, but he ultimately decided not to question her antics. Her acting that way didn't hurt anyone, and besides, there was a part of him that was genuinely curious as to what it was like having an older sibling-a curiosity that was most likely fueled by his rather lonely upbringing.

"No," he stated, right as his laugh began to die down. "No, you wouldn't."

"Good! Now that you've finally accepted big sister Yang into your life, I can answer the question you just asked without feeling an ounce of guilt!"

Despite having just that said that she'd answer his question, his newly-minted, self-proclaimed older sister didn't say anything. That prompted the half ghoul to ask, "I thought you said—"

"Yeah, I did just say that, but, before I give you that answer, let me take a second to tell you the first rule of having an older sister." After she said that, Yang suddenly closed the distance between them, roughly draped an arm over his shoulders, and whispered right into his ear. "It's that the older sister is always allowed to play dirty."

With that, she pulled away from Kaneki and continued down the hallway at her earlier speed-an act that caused a bit of bitterness to grow in him, which caused the amused smile that was already on his lips to grow even bigger.

_So, is this what having an older sister is like?_ He thought, moving to follow her. _Maybe I __**should**_ _start questioning this whole big sister act._

Kaneki was, of course, joking when he thought that.

* * *

Kaneki didn't really know what he expected to find when he and Yang reached his room, but the absolute last thing he expected was to find that it was completely drenched with the smell of coffee. Well, his room did usually smell like coffee, but it usually never did so with him outside of it.

"Why—?" Kaneki began, but was immediately cut off by Yang, who shushed him into silence and ushered him towards the door with a series of light pushes to the small of his back. Realizing what she wanted him to do, he reached for the knob and pushed the door open. Almost immediately, the source of the smell was revealed to him.

There, standing huddled closely around his desk, were the other three members of team RWBY. He could just barely peek in between their bodies from where he stood in the doorway, but he could see that they were doing something with his coffee brewing set. Exactly what was unknown to him, though.

Fueled by the curiosity and the tiniest bit of worry that was welling up inside of him, Kaneki announced his presence to the three. "Hey, what are you guys doing?"

Since they were all so enraptured in doing what they were doing, the sound of his voice caused the three of them to flinch in shock. All of them did so in drastically varying manners.

Weiss's flinch was a very minimal one. One could say that she never even flinched at all. Blake's, on the other hand, was the very opposite of that. The moment he spoke, she jumped in the air like…well, like an unsuspecting cat noticing that there was a cucumber behind it for the first time. Ruby's was in between those two types, going with the classic flinch of the shoulders and high-pitched yelp.

Kaneki probably would've found the entire sight extremely humorous, if it wasn't for the fact that he was still curious about what exactly they were doing in the first place.

"A-ah, Kaneki!" Ruby exclaimed shakily, as she and the two next to her turned towards him. "Y-you finally made it!"

Confused, Kaneki blinked owlishly. "Um, yeah, I made it…" He replied. He walked over to where the three stood and asked, "So, what were you guys doing with my coffee set?"

"Um…" Ruby began, stealing a couple of glances at the two girls standing around her, who both glanced back at her with concerned gazes.

_Why do I feel like they broke something? _Kaneki asked himself, trying to peer over his teammates and look at his coffee set. _Might as well get this over with…_

The moment he began doing so, Ruby immediately moved to stop him. "Kaneki, I swear it's not what you think!" She exclaimed, throwing herself in front of him, probably to try and stop him from seeing the shattered remnants of his coffee set. Luckily for her, he wasn't about to even contemplate trying to run through her over something so petty and immediately stopped dead in his tracks, which prompted a relieved sigh from his teammate.

"Look, you three," Kaneki began, reaching up and scratching the side of his head. "If you broke—"

"Ruby's telling you the truth, Kaneki," Blake cut in suddenly, drawing his attention almost immediately. "Trust me, we didn't break anything."

"Oh, so why were you all acting like—" he started to ask before being cut off once more, this time by Yang, who once again slung her arm over his shoulders as she spoke.

"It was because they were working on a surprise for your lonely butt," she explained to him like a mother chastising their child. "And, you know, I may be real off base here, but I'm sure they kind of wanted it to surprise you with it."

"Oh." The word slipped from Kaneki's mouth the moment Yang finished her explanation and not a moment later, he frowned guiltily. "Ah, sorry." Subconsciously, he immediately went to apologize for his mistake. He also would've scratched the back of his head too, but his arm was currently being pinned to the side of his body by his self-proclaimed older sister figure. "My bad."

"It's fine," Weiss waved his concern off both in a figurative sense and a literal sense as she waved her hand, much like a noblewoman shooing away one of her servants. "It's not like we needed it to be a surprise anyways." She shot a glare at Yang and added, "Though, some help keeping it a surprise certainly would've been appreciated."

The blonde let out an awkward laugh. "Hey, in my defense, you never told me to try and stall for time. All you said was to go and get Kaneki."

"Still, some of us might've thought that much was pretty self-explanatory," Blake chimed in flatly.

"Hey, why are you suddenly on her side?" Yang shot back incredulously. "Is it because you're still huffy about earlier?"

Blake leveled a glare at her blonde-haired partner. "I thought we agreed to not speak about that in front of him."

"'Huffy'?" Kaneki repeated the word immediately, his tone carrying the confusion he currently felt.

"It's not—" Blake began to say, but Yang cut her off before she could finish.

"—nothing you need to worry your little head about, short-stuff," Yang finished for her dark-haired partner, playfully slapping Kaneki between his shoulder blades.

A confused frown formed on his face after he heard her say that. _What in the world are they talking about?_ He began to cycle through every possibility, but eventually, he found that train of thought running straight into a dead end when he realized that he didn't even know where to begin. Despite that, he still found himself curious to learn what Blake and Yang were talking about.

But, before he could delve any further into the topic, his attention was grabbed by something that poked him lightly in the left bicep.

Turning towards aforementioned side, he soon found himself staring into the lively silver eyes of a certain young girl. He opened his mouth to ask her what she wanted, but he soon found himself being cut off when she grabbed him by the top of his left arm and pulled on it.

"Come on, Kaneki," Ruby instructed him, in a way that made it seem like she was just barely able to hold in her excitement. "Weiss and I'll show you the surprise." She pulled on his arm once more before adding, "I swear that you're gonna love it!"

"He better," Kaneki heard Weiss mutter under her breath. "I swear if I find out that all of my hard work went to waste…" He gulped a bit at that.

Seeing no other option but to comply with the demands of his team leader, Kaneki gave her a nod and allowed himself to be pulled along to wherever she wanted to bring him, which was most likely to his desk, with Weiss in tow, leaving Blake and Yang to continue their standoff.

As they began making their way towards their destination, which did indeed happen to be in the general direction of his desk, he felt a shock run through him when the entire room suddenly went dark. He would have thought that he had gone blind if it wasn't for the fact that he could feel something soft on his head-probably some kind of fabric if he had to guess.

"Is all of this really necessary?" He asked the two leading him to their destination.

"Yes!" Ruby groaned, with much more energy than he first expected. "It'll spoil the surprise if we just let you see what it is as we walk up."

"Fair point," he replied with a nod of his head, conceding his defeat to the fifteen year-old girl currently leading him somewhere with a series of light pulls on the arm.

_Well, at least this isn't the first time something like this has happened,_ he thought to himself idly.

The walk to their destination, of course, didn't take very long at all. Really, it only took him a few moments to find himself being stopped once again.

"Alright, here we are," Ruby told him, forcing him to a stop with another pull of the arm. "Now, I'm going to take the sheet off your head on the count of three." He nodded in response to that statement, which prompted her to begin the countdown. "One…two…three!"

The moment she reached three, Kaneki felt someone pull off the fabric that covered his head. When he was finally allowed to see again, the first thing he saw was his desk and the three porcelain cups displayed out on top of it in a perfect triangle. All three of were filled with an all too familiar dark brown liquid.

For whatever reason, it took him a few seconds for him to fully comprehend what he was being presented with. "What…?" he began, but trailed off when he found himself lacking the words to continue.

"Well, what do you think?" Weiss asked him, standing next to him with her arms crossed over her chest and quick with an explanation. "We thought that you could do with a little pick-me-up after all that happened at the docks and, since you drink more of the stuff than Professor Oobleck, we all agreed that the best way was to make you some coffee."

Kaneki blinked owlishly at Weiss, while simultaneously letting that explanation linger in his mind before finally giving her an answer.

"U-uh, yeah," he stuttered, an all too familiar warmth growing in his chest, an equally as warm smile growing alongside of it. "I love it, actually." That elicited a small smile from his sparring partner.

"Good," Weiss stated, nodding once, which prompted a certain someone on his right to clear her throat. "Oh, by the way, I'm sort of obligated to tell you that this was all Ruby's idea and that all of the credit for this goes to her."

"Wait," Kaneki said, furrowing his brows in confusion, "what does that have to do with any—?"

"She's under the impression that she can get you to give her a better score for the contest," Weiss cut in, which prompted him to turn his attention back on to his team leader, who was currently looking up at him with an ever-so innocent smile spread across her lips. "If you knew that she was the one who came up with this idea, that is."

Kaneki found himself blinking owlishly for what felt like the hundredth time in response to Weiss's explanation. "Um, wait, what was this about a contest?" He asked Ruby.

"Oh, yeah, I can't believe I completely forgot to tell you!" Ruby answered, her tone coming off as bashful. "The three of us were having a hard time figuring out who should be the one to make the coffee and after watching these two argue about it for a while," she glanced over at Weiss and then at Blake-who, at some point, stopped glaring at Yang and focused her attention over at the three of them at the desk-before finishing her explanation, "I thought that it'd be fun to have a contest to see who could make the best cup."

_Ah, so that explains why there are three cups instead of just the one,_ Kaneki thought to himself with a bit of relief, since it was a question he had been a mulling over for quite awhile now. _Though, that does bring up the question of why the two of them would even argue about something like that in the first place…_

That wasn't to say that Blake and Weiss never argued about anything. No, in all actuality, the opposite rang true, but he never thought that they'd argue about something that nonsensical. Their opinion on how the Schnee corporation used Faunus labor? Sure, because that made sense given their circumstances, but to argue about something like who would be the one to make him a cup of coffee? It made him wonder about how deep the tension ran between the two after what had happened at the docks, and if it had to done anything to cause the argument.

Making a note to ask Ruby about it before she left, Kaneki forced a smile. "Well, I definitely wouldn't want your hard work to go to waste…"

* * *

Kaneki felt himself swallow hard when he put the last of the three cups down before him; and wasn't just because of the fact that he still had a mouthful of coffee in his mouth. It was also partially due to the daggers that were being stared into the back of his head by the three competing in the contest he was being forced to judge.

_Why did I even agree to this again? _he asked himself before letting out a regretful sigh. _Oh yeah, it's because I don't know how turn down Ruby._

It was a fact that became extremely clear to him after the first time he got pressured into doing something by Ruby and her cuteness. He could remember it like it was yesterday. One moment, he was walking into the school library to check out a few books; the next, he was guiding Ruby through what they were taught in literature class a few hours earlier.

At the time, he wasn't too surprised by the fact she was having trouble with the subject matter. She was skipping two years ahead, after all, so suddenly having to deal with high school level material was probably a jarring experience for her. So, feeling a bit of pity for his young team leader, he had moved to help her.

Kaneki wouldn't necessarily call that decision a mistake, but he'd be remiss to say that he didn't find the endeavor just a little bit frustrating. It wasn't like Ruby was an especially unwilling student. She was always eager to go through the material that had been assigned to them, but she constantly struggled to pull out any of the core themes from said material. A problem that had only been exacerbated by her habit of taking things at face value. It took him a good while, but he did eventually manage to get her to understand what he was explaining to her.

Kaneki couldn't help but smile in response to the memory. The reaction he got from Ruby when they reached their first breakthrough really was priceless. Then again, having to spend over an hour going over the same material over and over again would do that to a fifteen year-old as energetic as she tended to be.

Still, all of that was really besides the point. After that initial tutoring session, Ruby got into the habit of asking him to help her with those literature assignments. He personally didn't mind doing so for the first few times, but he eventually began to worry about her using him as a crutch after the sixth time it happened. Yet, despite feeling that way, he couldn't bring himself to say anything about it to her. A decision that he largely attributed to the fact that tutoring her reminded him of a lot of when he'd help Hinami read through Sen Takatsuki's novels.

Of course, that inaction probably lead Ruby to think that he'd be willing to help her with any problem she couldn't solve on her own, which, thankfully, sounded a lot worse than it actually was in reality. She would only ever ask him to help her when she really needed it. That was greatly attributed to her title as team leader and her desire to live up to the billing. Again though, all of that was besides the point. The point being that he could never say 'no' to her.

"So what do you think, Kaneki?" The voice of the very girl he was thinking about rang out in the air, breaking him from his thoughts almost immediately. "Have you decided on a winner yet?"

"Quiet, you," Weiss snapped at her partner, though one could tell that she was holding back quite a bit when she said that. "Give him a minute to think. He's never going to be able to decide, if you're pestering him the entire time."

Ruby's mouth opened, probably to say something in protest to the impromptu lecture, but was cut off by a certain someone who had chosen to keep silent for the entirety of the tasting process.

"Yeah…" Blake said, pausing mid-sentence to let out a sigh, "…Weiss is right." She gave an uncharacteristically uncertain-looking nod. "I'm sure he'd get done a lot faster if you were to let him think."

_Hm… _Kaneki thought to himself, narrowing his eyes at her in concern. He decided against saying anything about it, already knowing how bad of an idea it would be to drag whatever was bothering her out on to the surface. The last thing he wanted to do was distress her, after all. Especially if there was nothing to drag out in the first place.

"No, it's fine," Kaneki cut into the discussion, waving off his friends' concerns both verbally and physically while he shook his head slowly. "Sorry, I just lost myself in thought there. I did decide on the winner though, if you all were curious."

In the end, he found choosing a winner to be an extremely simple affair, especially since all of them tasted so different from one another in terms of quality. Only one of them tasted bad, only one of them tasted middle of the road, and only one of them really hit it out of the ballpark. He could distinguish the best one from the three in less than a second, actually.

"Sweet!" Ruby exclaimed with a triumphant undertone to her voice that he couldn't help but notice. "So which one did you think was the best?"

He couldn't help but note the particular way his leader phrased her question. The way she said it implied that he'd have to choose from the three cups instead of the three contestants, which was pretty much what he was going to have to do because of a certain rule that they told him to follow.

To remove any bias from the competition, he wouldn't be allowed to know who made what cup. He had to admit that it was a smart rule to implement, but he couldn't help but think that the three of them were taking things way more seriously than needed. _Maybe there's a prize I'm not aware of? _He theorized offhandedly, before shrugging and giving his answer with as little as grandeur as possible.

"This one," Kaneki answered, pointing at the cup he had just put down, making sure to speak with very little hesitation. "This one here is the best."

"Yes!" Weiss exclaimed triumphantly next to him, which prompted him to turn his head towards the apparent winner of the contest, thus allowing him to see her in mid-jump. "Ha! I told you two that I would win!"

Perplexed by the sudden outpouring of emotion from his usually composed sparring partner, Kaneki couldn't help but stare at her in shock, all the while wondering about what exactly they put on the line to warrant such emotion.

"Ok, ok, we get it," Ruby told her partner, her tone crestfallen while proceeding to hang her head with equal sullenness. "You're better at making coffee than us…" She crossed her arms over her chest as she huffed, "You don't have to rub it in, y'know?"

Still utterly baffled about what exactly was going on, Kaneki glanced over at Blake to ask her, and found her staring down at the cups on the table with a determined pair of amber eyes. Her arms were crossed-one gripping her chin, the other her elbow. "Hey, uh… Blake," he said softly, hesitating a slight bit because of his reluctance to snap her from her thoughts. "Is everything alright?"

As expected, the sudden calling out of her name was enough to shake her from both her thoughts and the pose she had been holding.

"Ah…um, yeah," Blake replied, her eyes never leaving the desk. "Ev-everything's fine," she stuttered out, while nodding her head once. "My mind was a little preoccupied there." A little smile crawled on to her lips as she sent the driest of quips his way. "Something I'm sure you're more than familiar with."

Kaneki hummed amusedly, before asking, "So, which one was yours?"

"H-huh?" His friend noticeably flinched at the sudden change in topic, which elicited another hum from the young man.

"What?" Kaneki asked in response to the bewildered expression she was directing towards him. "I thought you'd want to know how you did." He then proceeded to flash her an apologetic smile after realizing his mistake. "You don't have to have to answer if you don't want to, of course, but seeing that you were staring at the cups so intently…"

"Uh…" She trailed off as her eyes adverted themselves from him and her hands suddenly busied themselves with hugging her elbows, something he took as a clear sign to not press the issue any further.

"Oh, just tell him which cup was yours, already!" Yang cut in suddenly, her voice coming in the form of a frustrated groan, though the reason for her frustration was completely beyond him. "I mean, it's not like you have anything to lose by telling him, right?"

While Kaneki appreciated the help his self-proclaimed older sister figure was trying to give him, the last thing he wanted to do was make Blake feel like he was pressuring into giving an answer. He immediately moved to reassure her that an answer wasn't necessary. "Like I said, you don't have to—"

"No, it's fine," Blake interrupted him, her tone still managing to sound dry, despite the fluster that had appeared on her face at the same time. "You just caught me off-guard," she mumbled, jerking her head in the direction of the three cups. "It's the one on the top-left, by the way."

When those last two words slipped from her mouth, Kaneki felt the entirety of the world freeze around him. Every muscle in his body felt as though someone had encased them in industrial-grade cement, which immediately began to contrast with the thin sheen of sweat that suddenly made its way on to his forehead.

His reaction must've been noticeable, because he soon got Blake waving her hand in front of his face while asking him, "Um, Kaneki, you alright?"

"Y-yeah," Kaneki instinctively stuttered. "I'm fine. Nothing wrong here at all." He inwardly groaned at his own stupidity when he heard that last sentence slip out from his mouth.

_Ah, no… _As he thought that little admission of regret, the sudden urge to take his head and slam it against his desk multiple times over began to well up inside of him. _Why did I say that last part? Could there be anything more suspicious to say after a question like that? I might as well just screamed out that there's something—!_

"Ah, I knew it," That statement, which was immediately followed by an exasperated sigh, coming from Blake's mouth forced his earlier train of thought to a dead stop. "You didn't like it, did you?"

Kaneki, not knowing how to answer without feeling as though he was hurting her feelings, simply smiled at her apologetically, eliciting another sigh from her.

"Look," Blake began slowly, making it sound like she was trying to speak to a child. "I appreciate that you don't want to hurt my feelings, but you already know how I feel about being treated like a porcelain doll." Despite her obvious irritation with him and his apparent coddling, she still somehow managed to speak in her usual dry tone. "If you want to say something to me, then just go ahead and say it."

Kaneki felt his heart skip a beat after hearing her say that, as it briefly dug up memories of the night she was referring to, and the emotion that seeing her cry drew out of him. It was definitely a jarring sight to see to say the least.

Still, she managed to push whatever emotions that ruled over her that night down and talk to him like there was nothing wrong at all. That in itself should've been enough to teach him that she wasn't someone who needed words minced for her sake. Actually, thinking back on some of the conversations they had during their investigation, he seemed to have taken those words to heart, but at some point during the past few days, he had forgotten that lesson.

_I'm starting to see why Touka liked to call me an idiot all the time,_ he joked to himself. He smiled apologetically, scratching the back of his head. "S-sorry about that," Kaneki apologized.

"It's fine," Blake waved off his concerns dryly before flashing him a reassuring smile. "Just make sure you remember it this time, alright?" He nodded his head in response to that request, doing so with no hesitation as to prove his seriousness to her. "Good, so what did you think of my coffee?" she asked him, which only elicited the same apologetic smile from him.

* * *

"Um…Blake?" Kaneki said worriedly. Blake ignored him, staring at her empty cup of coffee, just like she had been doing for the past five minutes. "Is everything alright?"

"Kaneki," Ruby whispered to him while leaning his way, her voice containing the same amount of worry that he had in his. "I think you broke her."

"Broke her and a half," Yang added on to her half-sister's previous statement whilst nodding her head in agreement.

"Yeah, definitely broken," Weiss tacked on with a sigh after the blonde. "And to think, all that it took was Kaneki telling her that her coffee was the worst one of the three."

Kaneki couldn't help but let out a sheepish chuckle at that. Never in a million years did he think that the answer he gave would lead to a reaction like this. _Maybe I was too harsh on her?_ He pondered her reasoning to himself, as he was still genuinely confused as to what caused the reaction that he was currently witnessing. _No, that couldn't be it… Could it? All I said was that I thought that the taste of her coffee was way too strong…_

"Should we, like, snap her out of it?" Ruby asked, immediately snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, most definitely," her partner answered with a nod of her head. "She'll be like this for days if she spaces out anything like Kaneki."

The young man in question was half-tempted to retort to the heiress's quip, but was cut off before he could decide whether he wanted to or not.

"Alright, so what are you waiting for, short-stuff?" Yang asked, nudging him in the side with her elbow. "Go snap her out of her little trance. You're the one who put her in it first place, after all."

"Uh… alright then." Kaneki nodded, already knowing that there was no way he could argue with Yang when she actually had logical reasoning before her actions. He found doing so when she didn't have logic on her side a hard enough task as it was.

So, without uttering a single word, he walked over to Blake, reached out, placed his hand on to the closest one of her shoulder and shook it lightly-an action that made her to jump a bit under his grip. "Blake," he began, drawing her eyes towards him immediately. "Is everything alright?"

Blake blinked at him three total times-rather cutely, if he might add-before her she finally gathered the wits to respond. "Ah, sorry," she apologized with the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks. "Did I space out there again?"

"Yep," answered Yang and Ruby in unison.

"Mhm," Weiss hummed in affirmation after the half-sisters gave their response, nodding her head once as she did so. "And might I add that it was for a whole six minutes this time."

"Yeah…now that I think about it, you've been doing that a lot lately, haven't you?" Ruby asked Blake off-handedly, though from the way she phrased the question, it was clear that his team leader meant it to be more of an observation than anything else. "I noticed that you were spacing out during Oobleck's class earlier today too, and you're usually one of the few who actually pays attention."

Kaneki felt a spike of worry run through him when he heard that. It had only been a couple days since the two of them finally returned to Beacon and, unlike himself, Blake needed to return to class not even two days after. So, he didn't think that it was too much of a stretch to assume that she was still focused on to what happened out on the docks. What she had to go through the past couple days would have left their mark on anyone. Yet, despite being aware of that, he decided that it'd be best to not do anything about it at all.

She had literally just told him that she didn't want him coddling her just a few minutes ago. After that, he would've needed to be the densest of idiots to think that she would want to tell him about any of the problems she was having, which meant that the best course of action was to, ironically enough, take no action against it.

Though, he ended up changing his mind on that rather quickly, which was mainly because he heard a detail that made everything click to him.

* * *

"Ah, so you noticed that?" Blake asked, though it was clear that she meant it to be rhetorical.

"Of course!" Ruby exclaimed loudly. "I mean, it's kind of hard not to notice you staring at Kaneki's empty seat for an entire class."

Blake blinked owlishly at her leader before she shifted her attention on to her two other teammates, asking them, "Did you two—?"

"Mhm," Yang gave an affirmatory hum back in response, her usual grin gracing her lips. "You were making it pretty obvious."

"No, why would I?" Weiss was the last to give an answer. Her voice went from indignant to a mix of matter-of-fact and condescending as she added unnecessarily, "Unlike the three of you, I was busy being a good student and remained focused on the lesson the entire time." Immediately after saying that she was glared at by the two-half sisters next to her, which prompted her to add, "Okay, okay, maybe I did notice you staring at his seat a couple of times. No more than that though."

_Crap,_ she cursed to herself mentally. _I was hoping that only Ruby noticed._ An exasperated sigh escaped from her lips as she turned her attention to the last person she wanted to be standing next to her as of the moment. _How am I even begin to explain this—?_

"You don't have to say it if you don't want to," Kaneki suddenly stated, completely cutting off her train of thought. "Besides, I think I already know why you were spacing out."

Blake felt her heart skip a beat when she heard him say that last part. "W-what do you mean?" She silently cursed herself for the stutter that came out.

"You still feel guilty about what happened to me, don't you?" Kaneki asked, casting his dull grey gaze off to the side. Blake opened her mouth to respond, but she was promptly cut off the moment she did so. "Like I said earlier, you don't have to talk to us about it if you don't want to. I just thought that you'd feel better if you knew that I don't think that you have to try to make it up to me, or anything like that."

At first, what Kaneki had told her had shocked her completely speechless, which left her staring at him with her mouth hanging wide-open for several straight seconds, before she was finally able to muster up the cognitive power to actually say something. "H-how did you…?"

In response, he flashed his usual sheepish grin. "It all sort of clicked when I heard that you were spacing out while staring at my seat." She felt her cheeks suddenly get warm when he felt the need to remind her of that detail. "And, when you factor in the fact that you spaced out twice during that contest, it became pretty obvious to me that you were trying to do something of that manner."

Blake was once again rendered speechless by what Kaneki just said, though her reasoning was a lot different this time. Last time, it was because she was shocked that he was able to so accurately tell her the reason why she had been spacing out.

This time, her silence was caused by her shock too, but shock aimed at herself and her lack of it instead. He just read her like a book and she wasn't at all surprised by it. In fact, that detail only made a smile want to break out on to the surface."Also, while we're on the subject," Kaneki began in a surprisingly jovial manner, drawing her from her thoughts and towards him. "You shouldn't feel too bad about not doing so well on your first attempt at making coffee. It took a lot of practice for me to reach the level I'm at today." A light-hearted chuckle escaped from him. "Well, that and a lot of verbal abuse from my teacher."

"Wait…'verbal abuse'?" Ruby interrupted the conversation going on between them suddenly, doing the double-take that Blake was sure that everyone in the room wanted to take. "Um, I know that it's none of my business, but what exactly do you mean by that?" Her tone coming out immensely awkward as she spoke.

An amused scoff left Kaneki's mouth at that-one that seemed rather misplaced given the original topic of their conversation. "Oh, it just means that the person who taught me the ropes at the cafe I told you all about was a harsh teacher."

"Um, you do know that answer really doesn't clear anything up, right?" It was now Weiss's turn to butt into the conversation.

"Oh, um, how do I explain this?" He muttered to himself, scratching at the back of his head. "I guess you could say that every time I made a mistake, I would be called a lot of things that I wouldn't be able to repeat in a school environment…or with Ruby around."

That last part elicited an indignant 'Hey!' from their young team leader.

"Wow, whoever taught you to make coffee really sounds like a…piece of work," Yang stated, probably pausing to stop herself from saying something vulgar around Ruby.

"Yeah, she was rough around the edges to say the least," Kaneki conceded, though his voice sounding much more nostalgic than anything else, which caused a spike of irritation to rise up inside Blake for whatever reason. "Actually, knowing her, she'd probably beat up me if I even insinuated that she wasn't." Blake's irritation continued to intensify.

"Hm," Yang hummed to herself quizzically, narrowing her eyes at him. "Y'know, you really don't sound too bitter about how she treated you. Actually, you don't sound like you minded being mistreated by her at all. It's almost as if you enjoyed it or something." The blonde sounded uncharacteristically sheepish as she added on the last part.

"Well—" he began, but was forced to stop when a certain blonde suddenly shoved him in the shoulder with enough force that she almost knocked him off his feet.

"Okay, time to stop this conversation before it gets any weirder," Yang told everyone rapidly, her cheeks reddening a great deal as she did so, which immediately tipped everyone else in the room off as to what she really meant to when she said that…well, everyone other than Ruby, and the realization caused the remaining three to fluster as well.

_Oh, please don't tell me that means what Yang thinks that means…_ Blake thought to herself, greatly annoyed by the path their conversation-one that had been prominently serious a few moments ago-had swerved off on to.

Thankfully for everyone, Kaneki immediately moved to deny Yang's claims. "H-hey, let me explain!"

Of course, the derailed mess that their conversation had turned into didn't end there…

**-Chapter End-**

Well, I have learned a lesson these last few days. Never try to finishing chapters late at night. Otherwise, your inner twelve year-old will crawl out from whatever dark corner of your mind that you shoved it into and take control of your body. I mean, how much more low brow can you get? I literally just made a joke about Kaneki being a masochist. That is some generic harem light novel-level humor, right there.

Anyways, self-bashing aside, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I know that it was very light and fluffy, but this was really just a set-up chapter for me. This is pretty much the new chapter four. Hell, this one even has coffee in it, just like chapter four. Just go and replace chapter four with this chapter, it'll get about the same mileage, but with better grammar.

Also, before I go, FineChyna says 'hi'.


	16. Chapter 14: Grind Away Golden Branches

Hey, what's up guys! Welcome to the fourteenth ever installment of Tokyo Ghoul: Remnant. So, I really have nothing to talk about. I mean, I could talk about the fact that school is going to be starting up soon, since that is a pretty important and relative topic, but I'm not. Mainly because I really, **REALLY** don't want to talk about school.

Why? Well, it's because of the fact that me going back to school, really doesn't change anything at all. I am not going to be slowing down production of this story just because of school. Really. I love doing this too much allow it to. So, let's just leave it at that and only that.

Anyways, like I said, I really don't have much to talk about. I mean, I have a bunch of stuff to talk about at the end of this chapter, but it all has to do with the chapter itself and what takes place in it, and what I thought while I was writing it. So, if you want to hear me talk about all of that, then just read the chapter and then tune in to the bottom of the page to read my little spoilercast/director's commentary.

Also, before I get into whatever I use to segue into the mandatory disclaimer, I have a little message for all of you. My beta-reader, you all pretty much know her name by now and if you don't, go and go back and read some of my past author's notes, wants YOUR help! Recently, with the release and subsequent success of her very own Tokyo Ghoul and RWBY crossover, Glass Lilies, she now seeks to strip me of my title as 'god king of the Tokyo Ghoul/RWBY crossover section'. I, being the benevolent god king that I am, decided to allow her to voice her plea for assistance to all of you. So, I implore you my kind subjects, listen to her pleas and help her in her quest to usurp me! I welcome it!

Also, also… Yes, I did just refer to myself as god king of this particular crossover section. What you going to do about it? Hopefully try and prove me wrong by writing a better story than I ever could, because, you know, I would appreciate the air of competition it would bring and improve myself. And, you know, not be a salty bitch about it.

Also, also, also… Blah, blah, blah… *insert segue to disclaimer here* …blah, blah, blah.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

Blah, blah, blah… *insert mandatory disclaimer here* …blah, blah, blah.

**-Chapter 14: Grind Away Golden Branches-**

Kaneki sighed wearily, setting his calendar back on his desk after checking it for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Nearly a whole week had passed by since his teammates had asked him to take part in their coffee-tasting contest, and nothing spectacular had managed to happen in the meantime. As a result, the past few days had melted into a single, extremely long one, due to how painstakingly mundane his life had become.

Thankfully, Kaneki was well-experienced with having to spend entire weeks doing nothing but the bare necessities to keep him going-something that he attributed heavily to his introverted lifestyle. Still, despite being well-accustomed to the tedium he was currently going through, he couldn't help but yearn for the company of his teammates. Their presence in his life had been such an uncompromising constant that the sudden lack of it made him feel as though time was slipping by even more slowly than it actually was. At the very least, they made his life more than just sleeping, coffee and books.

Glancing down at the stub where the upper portion of his forearm should've been, he couldn't help but let out a frustrated sigh. _It hasn't started regenerating at all… _he thought bitterly, raising the stump, before letting it hang at his side. _Still nothing…I guess I must've overestimated the capabilities of my regeneration._

A part of him knew that he probably should've felt more when he contemplated the loss of his arm, but after all he'd lost in his life, losing a body part was just a mere setback. Really, it was just like accidentally spilling a pitcher of water-nothing more than a bother. If the upper part of his arm was indeed never coming back, then Kaneki would simply learn to live without it. It was as simple as that, really.

Placing his thumb over his index finger, he smiled tightly, grimaced, really, before cracking his knuckle. _Hm,_ Kaneki thought, shifting his gaze to the door to his room. _I wonder if Ozpin's busy right now._

* * *

Kaneki fell to a single knee, staring down the man standing across from him through the gaps in his drenched hair. _Dammit,_ he cursed to himself, propping his blade up on the ground and leaning on it as if it were a cane. His legs, after all of the strain he had put on them, felt like they were made up of something akin to gelatin that had been crushed with a fork. _I guess this is how you earn the title of headmaster…_

To put it bluntly, the half-ghoul was absolutely getting his ass handed to him by his opponent. Then again, could he really have expected any different from the man who sat at the very top of Beacon's food chain? He was the headmaster of a school meant to teach hunters and huntresses, the strongest people in all of Remnant, and that was a distinction Kaneki was sure wasn't handed out to just anyone. Still, knowing that someone was strong and actually seeing that strength be displayed in person were two different things entirely.

From the very start of their spar, Kaneki quickly realized that he'd never be able to beat Ozpin, as the headmaster easily deflected his first string of attacks without even moving from where he stood. Clearly, he was outclassed by his opponent, but that didn't mean he was going to stop sparring.

Kaneki knew that people adapted the best when they were pushed to their limits. With his left side currently being lighter than his right side, due to his recent **disarming**, he needed to learn how to fight without having a natural way to keep himself balanced, especially since his fighting style entailed that he shift his body weight around frequently. If he didn't now, it would definitely bite him in the ass later.

So, after nearly an hour of bashing his head against the steel wall that called itself the headmaster of Beacon, Kaneki felt as though he was nearly at the point where he could enter a fight without having to worry about it. It took a lot of stumbling and getting tripped, but he did eventually figure out what he needed to do.

"How…long…?" Kaneki asked his opponent between ragged, labored breaths.

"Four minutes," Ozpin stated, making his way over to where the younger of the two stood. "Which means that you've improved on your best time by a whole minute now."

"Ah…improving…" Kaneki wheezed out, a satisfied smirk growing on to his face while he shifted his body a bit, so that he could feel more comfortable while leaning against the steel hilt of his makeshift cane. "Good…good," he muttered under his breath, struggling to regain control of his heaving lungs. "Again…let's go again."

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "As an educator, I hate to play the contrarian when a student tries to challenge themselves, but do you really think that's the best idea?" The silver-haired headmaster asked him. "You can barely even stand up on your own. Do you seriously think that you stand much more of a chance now?"

The half ghoul opened his mouth to counter that claim, but promptly shut it when he found that the only thing coming out from it was just more ragged breathing. _Dammit… _he thought bitterly, already knowing that probably just killed any chances of him being able to convince the headmaster otherwise.

"Look, Mr. Kaneki, I respect that you want to get yourself back in fighting shape as quickly as possible," Ozpin said, placing one of his hands on to the student's right shoulder. "But you and I both know that forcing yourself like this isn't going to get you anywhere."

"…Fine," Ken replied reluctantly, before granting his body the reprieve it so desperately begged for and allowing himself to fall flat on to his back...Or, at least, that was the plan, before his descent was cut short by the hand holding on to his shoulder.

"You know…you really don't have...to do this," the half ghoul muttered bashfully as Ozpin slowly lowered him down on to the floor.

"I'm well aware of that," the bespectacled man replied, flashing him a slight hint of a smile, "but what kind of educator would I be if I let a student of mine fall on to his backside _all_ the time?"

Kaneki couldn't help but wince when he heard that last part, mainly because it brought back memories of the many times the man did let him fall flat on to his backside in the past hour.

"You…don't have to…remind me," he replied, his chest still heaving in and out rapidly. "I remember…the other times…well enough."

The silver-haired man standing over him let out a quiet chuckle. "So, are you any closer to figuring out what you need to do?"

Not wanting to waste any of breath-which had become quite the commodity with his lungs as of late-giving a verbal response, Kaneki simply nodded his head, before laying himself flat out on to the ground under him. He silently relished the cool feeling of the metal on the few bits of his skin that wasn't covered up by the fabric of his sweat-soaked shirt.

"Well, it certainly showed," Ozpin noted offhandedly, nodding his head slowly. He sat down right next to where the exhausted student lay. "You even almost managed to graze me at the end there."

"…I noticed." A bitter taste beginning to pool in the back of his mouth, Ken thought back to the closing moments of their most recent clash, knowing how close he was to landing a hit on the headmaster. If he hadn't messed up his footing with that last lunge…

Silence blanketed over the conversation as the young man began thinking up ways to prevent any more mistakes of that nature from happening. However, before he could delve too deep into those thoughts, he was dragged away from them by the sound of Ozpin's voice.

"May I ask you a question, Mr. Kaneki?" The headmaster asked suddenly. Almost subconsciously, Kaneki nodded. "Why exactly did you come and ask me to spar?"

Confused, Kaneki glanced over at the man sitting next to him and narrowed his eyes, before asking a question of his own. "What do you mean?"

"You have four teammates who I know would all be happy to help you get back into fighting shape," Ozpin replied. "So, why ask me of all people to do so? I'm sure they would be more than adequate enough to get you to the point you're trying to reach."

Kaneki fell silent, mainly because he knew that his answer wasn't a simple one to explain for various reasons. Still, he tried his best to explain himself to the headmaster. "It's because I can't afford to take my time with this…Not when the lives of my friends could be on the line in the future."

"Ah, so you're doing this to keep from being your team's sole liability," Ozpin summarized Kaneki's answer perfectly, before nodding his head to show his understanding. "Do you mind me voicing my opinion on that?"

"Go ahead," the exhausted young man replied with an upward nod of his head, though a part of him was already sure of what he was going to say.

"Personally, I think that you're going about all of this the entirely wrong way," Ozpin stated bluntly.

_Hm, looks like I got it right on the money with that guess,_ the half ghoul noted with a tiny bit of mirth, having firmly expected something like that to come from the man.

"Yeah," Kaneki replied, his earlier amusement carrying over to his physical voice. "I know."

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

A wave of amusement washed over Kaneki when he heard that and immediately showed itself in the form of a smile-the same one that crawled on to his lips in his room earlier. "Of course. It wouldn't be very smart of me to forget about a long-standing problem of mine."

"'Long-standing'?"

"It's been a problem of mine for a while now, though I only really became aware of it a few seconds before I woke up here in Beacon."

"If you've known about it for that long—"

"I don't know." Kaneki was fully aware of the fact that his answer wasn't much of an answer, but unfortunately, it was the only one he had to give. "I guess old habits just die hard."

A crack resonated through the air while the young man thought back to the first time he really thought to address aforementioned habit, but stopped himself when he realized something. _Wait, is that the reason why?_

"Hey, headmaster Ozpin…" Ken began, which drew the headmaster's attention on to him. "Would you mind if I asked you to do something for me?"

* * *

Blake let out an indignant snort in response to the question that had been asked of her. "I fail to see how my relationship with Kaneki is any of your business," she told Sun, who had posed the question to her in the first place.

He didn't say anything in response; all he did was let out a defeated sigh and allow his shoulders to slump dramatically.

Confused by the reaction, Blake narrowed her eyes at the blonde walking besides her. "Is there a problem?" She asked, somewhat tiredly.

"Uh, n-no," Sun stuttered, flashing a sheepish grin. "No problem at all."

Having seen that reaction enough to know that the boy didn't really mean what he said, Blake raised a skeptical eyebrow, but before she could say anything, she was interrupted by another, much louder blonde.

"Hey, lay off the guy," Yang stated playfully, cutting into the conversation suddenly. "You already broke the guy's heart-don't you think stomping on it is just a little bit cruel?"

Blake sighed in exasperation before glaring at her teammate's head. "Didn't we already have this discussion a couple days ago?" She asked, massaging the bridge of her nose.

"We did?" Yang asked back, placing the tip of her index finger to her chin, clearly feigning innocence.

"Sorry. I must've forgot all of the details at some point." Blake groaned. "Would you mind reminding me of how exactly that 'conversation' went down?"

"I remember you asking me to answer a lot of stupid questions that I didn't want to answer."

"Stupid?!" Yang gasped incredulously, while shifting her hand over her mouth. "You dare imply such a thing?!"

Suppressing the need to let out another groan, Blake shook her head. "I really can't believe you sometimes," she muttered under her breath.

"Aw, but I thought you liked unpredictability," Yang whimpered weakly, slumping her entire body over to show her disappointment. She suddenly snapped her head up and winked. "Or, maybe you only like it because it's something Kaneki has in spades?"

Blake's amber eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to say something back in retort, but immediately stopped herself, knowing that she would be playing right into Yang's hand if she did. Instead, she opted to just glare at her partner.

"Hey, you two!" A certain heiress called, which prompted them to shift both of their attention on to her almost immediately. Weiss was walking a little up ahead of them with Ruby and Sun's newly-transferred, blue-haired teammate, Neptune. Upon seeing that she had both of their attention, she proceeded to ask, "Could the two of you just stop bickering for a moment and listen up? I just got a message from Ozpin that he wanted to be relayed to everyone."

"Uh, s-sorry," Blake replied, her cheeks growing a degree warmer. "Go ahead." Her loudmouth of a partner, on the other hand, didn't say anything at all. All she did was flash a triumphant smirk and motion for Weiss to continue same with a nod of the head.

"He's apparently out in Vale running an errand with Kaneki and won't be back until sometime later," Weiss explained. She shook her head with disbelief. "Seriously, of all the days for Kaneki to take off again…"

_What…?_ Blake's eyes widened in response to the heiress's explanation. _What in the world is that idiot planning on doing now?_ She thought, remembering what happened the last time the half ghoul went out to run an 'errand'.

"Well, isn't that kind of for the best?" Sun cut into the conversation suddenly. "I know that I haven't seen the guy in close to a week now, but he definitely wasn't in the best shape last time I saw him." Shrugging his shoulders, he added, "Would bringing him really be a good idea? The dude was missing a part of his arm, for Pete's sake!"

_Seriously?_ Blake thought. It took all of her willpower to hold back the ever-growing need to let out an irritated groan. _We just told you to not say anything about his injuries in front of Neptune…_

Glancing over at aforementioned transfer, Blake found that his seemingly ever-present smirk was gone, having been replaced by a look of concern.

"Well…" Ruby began while she sheepishly scratched at the back of her head.

"Wait!" Sun exclaimed disbelievingly. "You guys were actually planning on bringing him?"

"Hey, in our defense, Short-stuff's way tougher than he looks," Yang answered, doing so on the behalf of a very befuddled-looking Ruby. "I'm sure he would've been perfectly fine!"

"Still, that's a lot to ride on an assumption," the monkey Faunus stated with a quick shake of his head.

"Either way, he isn't going to be able to come with us now that he's out in the city doing…whatever he's doing with Ozpin," Blake stated dryly, crossing her arms over her chest. "We should just hurry up and get started."

"Hm, is that a little disappoint—" Yang began to say, but was almost immediately cut off.

"—No," Blake interrupted.

That, of course, only elicited a laugh from the blonde.

* * *

_Ah, there she is… _Kaneki thought as he caught sight of his target, who was busy sifting through the near impossibly large stack of books that sat on her desk. He began walking over to where she stood. _Have to be quick, otherwise Ozpin is going to come check on me…_

The moment he started walking, Kaneki became acutely aware of how much louder the sound of footsteps became when there was no other sound to obscure it. Though, he really didn't mind it, because it saved him from having to call out to his target to get her attention.

Probably having noticed the foreign footsteps approaching her location, his target looked up from the pile of books in front of her and shifted her gaze over to where the noise was coming from, which prompted a surprised expression to suddenly appear on her face.

"Ah, back already?" The librarian asked Kaneki in greeting, her crimson gaze not so subtly fixated on to the lower-left side of his body. A bit of concern flashed across her face, before she narrowed her eyes and bluntly asked, "What in the hell happened to you?"

Kaneki couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips when he heard how bluntly his target had spoke, recognizing it and not recognizing it all at the same time. "A lot," he replied, purposefully vague, wanting to see if he could break her down even further before doing what he came to do.

"Yeah, I could tell that much," the librarian shot back, her eyes narrowing even further. "Hell, it would take a blind person to not see that much." She took in a deep breath. "Now, I'm only going to ask you this one more time—"

Before his target could go any further, the half ghoul decided to cut her off by placing his one arm on to her desk and leaning his body weight on to it, taking up the same stance as someone waiting to order a drink at a standup bar. "You haven't changed at all, have you?" He asked her in the quietest whisper he could manage. "You're still terrible at staying in character."

Alright, that's step one, the young man thought to himself. _Now I need to get her thinking that I'm still Haise…_

"To be fair, I only have trouble with staying in character when I have to deal with you," the farce of a librarian retorted in a way that made her sound strangely motherly. "So, you finally got your memories back, huh?"

"Bits and pieces," Kaneki answered truthfully, seeing no need to lie to the woman before him. "I'm nowhere close to having all of them back, though."

"Well, that explains a lot," she muttered to herself vaguely. That response prompted him to raise a confused brow, but Kaneki decided that it was probably best not to test his luck and pry any further than he needed. "So, what happened?" The woman asked, her crimson eyes once again not so subtly aimed at the lower-left side of his body. "Because the last time we spoke, you didn't look like a pirate who was too poor afford a hook."

Kaneki couldn't help but laugh a bit at the jab. "I was helping a friend investigate the White Fang, and things got out of control," he explained, making a conscious decision to not mention Neo and her involvement in what happened on the docks. A part of him already knew that the woman would blow things way out of proportion if he did.

"Must've been some friend to be worth losing a literal arm and eye over," she replied, her voice making it clear that she was not at all surprised by what his reasoning, just wholly disappointed by what it ended up being.

"Yeah…" Kaneki stated unconsciously while glancing down at his stump of a left arm. "…She's definitely worth it."

"'She'? Oh, please tell me that friend of yours wasn't—"

"No, it wasn't Neo. Truth be told, I don't think she's worth risking a paper cut over anymore."

"Really? Good to know that you finally see that backstabbing snake for what she really was."

"Wait, uh, I get that you don't particularly like her, but when did you start thinking of her as a 'backstabbing snake'? Last time, it was just that she was a bad influence. A bit of a big leap in logic, don't you think?"

"Well, I don't know… The time where she literally stabbed you in the back and pushed you out of a bullhead mid-flight comes to mind."

"...You knew about that?"

"Of course, I do. Who do you think saved you after you hit the ground? An all-powerful demon-woman who can control all the Grimm like they were her puppets?"

Kaneki blinked owlishly at the woman. _That…that was oddly specific,_ he noted. He filed the joke as something serious in the back of his mind, just in case that was an attempt at misdirection on her part.

"That seems highly unlikely," he pointed out, his tone as skeptical as Weiss being told that her name alone didn't make her naturally better than everyone. "How would you even know that I was in danger in the first place?"

"A mother bird always keeps a watchful eye on her chicks as they're learning to fly," the farce of a librarian explained, which caused an all too familiar pain to flare in the center of his stomach. It was almost as if she just had said something so out of character that even Haise couldn't accept it. She then proceeded to say something that caused his eye to shoot open, "Isn't that right, Kaneki?"

"Wait—?" Kaneki began to ask, but was cut off when the familiar yet unfamiliar woman's hand shot out from behind the desk suddenly, grabbing on to his tie and pulling on it so that their heads were right next to each other.

"I know that you probably came here to get answers, but we can't talk here," the woman explained in a harsh whisper. "Here." She suddenly slid a hardcover book over her desk to him. "Take this."

Glancing down at the book being offered him, the young man began to ask, "What—?"

"No time to explain. You'll figure it out. Now, hurry up and take it. I need to go before Ozpin gets here. Can't risk being recognized."

Before Kaneki could even think of questioning what she was telling him, the farce of a librarian released her grip on his tie and moved out from behind her desk, quickly disappearing into the near countless rows of bookshelves.

Mouth agape, Kaneki glanced down at the book that had been forced on to him and picked it up off the desk. Before he could take a moment to study it, an all too familiar voice called out to him.

"Ah, Mr. Kaneki, did they have the book you reserved?" Ozpin asked him, which prompted the Beacon student to turn his gaze to where it came from.

"Oh, yeah," Kaneki replied, holding up said book up for his headmaster to see.

"Well, that's good," the older man stated with a nod. "Shall we head back then?"

"Mhm," Kaneki hummed in affirmation, taking a moment to glance down at the book, before striding over to where the headmaster stood. "Let's get going."

Placing his thumb over his index finger as he walked, the half ghoul indulged in an old habit.

* * *

_"Hey, Kaneki,_

_The team had to go out to run some errands. We'll be gone until really late at night. Don't wait up for us._

_-Blake._

_P.S: Ruby says 'hi', by the way."_

_Huh, so that's what that feels like,_ Kaneki thought. He reached up and tore down the note that had been taped to the door of his room, crumpling it up into a little ball before tossing it off to the side without a care._ Note to self, always talk to team before going out run errands. That is irritating._

Pulling the key to the door from his pocket, Kaneki quickly went to work unlocking it-a task that was made a thousand times more difficult by the fact that he only had one arm, which was already busy carrying the book that the 'librarian' had given to him. Still, he persevered through the adversity that he was faced with and managed, somehow, to get the door unlocked.

Pushing it open, Kaneki quickly made his way over to his bed and tossed the book on to it, before doing so with the rest of his body. A relaxed sigh escaped from his lips when he felt his exhausted muscles sink into the cushy surface of the mattress. _I wonder what they're doing?_ He asked himself, reaching up a hand to undo his tie. _Nothing dangerous, I hope._

Idly, the exhausted young man pondered the ever-tempting option of allowing his weary body the sleep it so desperately needed, but quickly struck the idea down. Unfortunately, there was still something that he needed to do.

Turning his head so that he was facing the book, Kaneki reached his one hand out and attempted to drag it closer to himself with the tips of his fingers. A couple attempts were needed before he finally managed to do so, but when he did, he quickly went to work studying every nook and cranny of it.

Thankfully, the half ghoul didn't have to wait long to have his eyes caught by a discrepancy. There, in the middle of the pages, was a space-the same kind one would see if a page had one of its corner bent so that it could serve as a makeshift bookmark. Narrowing his eye at it, he sat up, placed the book down next to him, and flipped it open to that page with a solid flick of the finger, revealing something to him that he found absolutely confounding.

There, sitting in a hollowed out pocket in the pages of the book, was a dull-crimson leather glove. Upon picking it up and studying it, the half ghoul found that there were some strange markings on the back of it, all etched in black.

_What in the world?_ Kaneki asked himself as he continued to study it. _Should I—? No, not yet._ Turning his gaze back down towards the hollowed-out book, he noticed that it still held something inside of it-a small, nearly paper-thin object that bore the same color scheme as the glove. It was almost all red, with black focused in the center of it, taking the form of a diamond. It took him a moment, but he soon recognized it to be a scroll.

Curious, Kaneki placed the strange glove back on to the bed and replaced it with the scroll. A few moments of hesitation later, he finally got the courage he needed to place the pad of his thumb on the diamond and activate the scroll. The moment he did so, a message popped up on the screen, simply reading: "Just put the glove on, Kaneki."

_Huh? How did—?_ The young man began to ask, but was quickly interrupted by another message.

"Don't question it. Just hurry up and do it. Trust me."

Kaneki narrowed his eye at the screen in his hand, before turning his aforementioned eye back down to the glove. Letting out a tired sigh, the snowy-haired half ghoul placed the scroll back down on to the bed and allowed one of his kagune to slip out from the small of his back, using it to pick up the glove by its opening.

_Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this?_ Kaneki asked himself as he raised his hand up to the opening, a frown prominent on his face. Upon slipping it all the way on to his hand, he felt his entire body seize up all at once as pain suddenly began to course through his body. _A-AH! WHAT THE—?!_ He thought, alarmed, but that train of thought was cut off when he felt more pain surge through him. _F-FUCK!_

The pain was awful. It was almost as if every nerve in his body had been doused in oil and set ablaze. If it wasn't for the fact his body was paralyzed by that pain, Kaneki, even with his tolerance for punishment, would have been thrashing about and howling.

Once the conflagratory-like pain subsided, the half ghoul felt his upper body slump forwards. Forearms on his knees and head hung, his eye shot back to the glove, which prompted him to notice that a bright, white light was emanating from the symbols on the back of it. He wanted to just glare at the offending article of clothing for a good while, but was stopped when he felt a sudden and intense queasiness run over him, and his body started moving before he could stop it.

To make a long story short, Kaneki was out of his room and in the male bathroom in less than a second. He ended up dry heaving into a sink, as he wasn't fast enough to reach a toilet.

Once the dry heaving finally concluded, and he was sure nothing was going to be coming out, Kaneki began to raise his head up from the sink, but stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed something sitting right out of the left corner of his eye.

There was a hand gripping on to the porcelain surface of the sink. It was black and scaly, but there was no doubt that it was a hand. Tracing it up to where it originated from, Kaneki found that it now filled a once-empty space.

Not quite sure he was actually seeing what he was seeing, the half ghoul raised his head and focused his attention on to the mirror that sat a little above the sink. What it reflected back at him made him want to break down laughing.

There, staring back at him, was, as expected, Kaneki's reflection. However, instead of looking at a young man with snowy-white hair and one complete arm, he was looking at someone who looked completely different.

The young man staring back at him had his face, to be sure, but that was where the similarities ended. He had mainly white hair, but his roots, up to an inch out, were painted black. He also had an actual pair of arms instead of just one, though that second arm was covered in black, snake-like scales.

_What…what in the hell just happened?_ Kaneki asked himself, widened eye shifting back down towards the very glove that caused it all.

* * *

"Hm…" Kaneki hummed unconsciously from his bed, staring at the glove that served as the catalyst for his arm suddenly regenerating like it did. His vision was finally unobstructed, as he had taken off his eyepatch. He was trying to figure out what exactly the glove was.

Specifically, the half ghoul racked through his vast well of literary knowledge. He recognized the glove's sudden appearance in his life and the already great impact it had had on him, as some of the first tell-tale signs of an author using a physical object to try and drive the plot forward. Although he did know that it would be pretty short-sighted of him think as everything like it was taken straight out of a book, he felt like he could do so with the glove due to, well, it being just a simple piece of leather. It didn't contain some morally ambiguous being inside of it-it was just, through and through, a glove with unusual powers; and that afforded him the opportunity to look at it as if it were just a plot point in some book. Though, that really just opened up a new can of worms for him to shift through.

_Dammit,_ Kaneki cursed to himself, throwing his body into the cushiony embrace of his bed, combing through his now salt-and-pepper hair with both of his hands. Eventually, he pulled on it in frustration. _This is going to get me nowhere._ The biggest problem with going at something like it was a literary device was the fact that it could literally be and do anything-all it had to do was make some sort of sense-which meant that there was no way of actually figuring out what it was just by thinking about it.

Still, Kaneki felt as though he didn't have any other choice in the matter. He could try to put the glove back on and see what would happen, but that was absolutely the last thing he wanted to do. For all he knew, the thing could start siphoning out his life force bit by bit, and no benefit it could give him, not even the use of his arm, was worth risking that much. Thankfully, he did still have his arm, despite having taken the glove off-a detail that told him that the regeneration of his arm wasn't one-hundred percent due to it.

There was always the option of asking that farce of a librarian if she knew what it was, although that entailed its own set of problems. The biggest of which was the ability to get into secure contact with her, emphasis on secure.

A crack resonated through the air, this time on his left side, as the half ghoul tiredly sighed to himself. _Dammit...looks like I don't have any other choice,_ he thought idly, using his exhausted muscles to sit himself up on his bed. He then went over to where he had set the glove and scroll down, picked the two up, and returned them to where he first found them-the hollow space in the book. Flipping said book shut, he went to hide it at the very bottom of a large stack that had been steadily building up in the far corner of his room. I'm just going to have to cross that bridge when I get there, he added mentally, before throwing himself back on to his bed.

"What a day…" Kaneki muttered to himself, his voice harboring the exhaustion he had been fighting. A yawn escaped from him as he wearily added, "…I wonder…if I…I should wait for the…for the…"

Unfortunately, Kaneki wasn't able to finish that train of thought, because he soon fell victim to the exhaustion that plagued him. The adorable mental image of an agitated black cat, wearing a bow, pressing one of its front paws down on a piece of paper, dominated his mind for whatever reason.

* * *

Suddenly, Kaneki felt a strangely familiar pain begin to burn through his abdomen, effectively destroying the proverbial chains that kept him tethered to sleep.

The moment sleep slipped away from him, the young man immediately took note of the non-existent cement that encased his body. Having already experienced the sensation two times before, it didn't take him long to realize what exactly was going on.

_Another flashback?_ Ken asked himself irritatedly, which was a direct result of his mind's subconscious shift of focus away from the proverbial cement that kept him immobile and on to the very real, wildfire that burned in his midsection. _What's causing that? Wait, haven't I felt something-_

Before the half ghoul could finish the thought, he was interrupted by the all too familiar voice of that farce of a librarian muttering something under her breath. "Dammit Haise…" She must have been doing so from a good distance away too, because he could just barely hear what she had said, despite the silence that lingered over them.

_That librarian ag—?_ Kaneki began to think, but was cut off when he felt an unknown force begin pressing down on his already-pained abdomen.

"Mh!" The half ghoul, or rather, his otherworldly counterpart, grunted in a combination of both shock and pain. Kaneki felt all of Haise's facial muscles come together to form a wince.

"Oh, just bear through it!" The faux librarian growled out harshly, right as he felt the weight pressing down on his abdomen suddenly spike up in intensity, which elicited another grunt of anguish from him. He immediately noted how much closer the voice sounded. "It's either this, or—"

An animalistic-sounding growl suddenly cut in the middle of the librarian's strangely comforting tones, which prompted the woman to click her tongue out of irritation.

A second later, the weight pushing against his midsection lessened substantially as he heard the sound of footsteps leading away from him, granting the young man a moment of needed reprieve from the fire burning in his stomach.

For a good while, the air was filled with roars of a mixed origin-some being born from pain and some of anger-with the occasional sound of an explosion mixed in every once in awhile. Then suddenly, as if it was waiting for someone's cue, all of the noise ceased.

Probably curious as to what caused the silence, Kaneki felt Haise try to force open his eyes-an act that he succeeded in doing, despite the fact that it felt like his eyes were being kept closed by anchors attached to chains. The moment he did so, Kaneki quickly took note of how blurry his counterpart's vision was. It was actually so bad that the orange-tinted blue sky above him looked like nothing more than a massive blur.

"M…mom?" Ken internally flinched when he heard the word he detested so much slip out from between his lips.

_Why is he calling out for his mother?_ The half ghoul asked himself curiously. _Hallucinations, maybe? If my assumption is right, then he did just get stabbed not too long ago._

"Calling out for your mother?" An unfamiliar voice spoke out from somewhere to his direct left, drawing his and Haise's attention over to it immediately. "Considering the current state you're in, I can't say that I'm surprised."

The moment his other-worldly counterpart did so, Kaneki's eyes were met with the sight of a blurry, jet-black mass floating up to him slowly. "What…?" The words wanted to come out, but the blood that pooled in his mouth strangled them before they could be said.

Before he could continue his struggling, the black mass suddenly drew closer to Haise's prone body, allowing Kaneki to see whatever it was a bit more clearly. However, that really just meant that he could make out the general shape of the mass, instead of a blurry blob. From what the half ghoul could tell, it was most definitely a human-a human woman, or at the very least, it took the form of one. _Who—?_ He began to ask, but the unknown woman interrupted him before he could finish.

"Now, now, let's not waste time getting into the details of what I am, shall we?" She spoke in a hurried fashion, making it clear to him that that she didn't want to waste any time. "Let's just get into what I can do for you, or rather, what I'm going to do for you."

The moment he heard those words come from the woman, warning-alarms started to blare in Kaneki's head and told him to get far, far away.

"You see, I'm in need of someone to protect a very important friend of mine and I happen to think that you'd be a perfect candidate for the job," the suspicious woman explained. "Truth be told, I've had my eyes fixed on you for an extremely long time. You were just missing a few, much-needed requirements for the job."

"Now, considering your current predicament, I've come to the realization that expecting you to eventually meet those requirements on your own was a pipe dream at best. So, I've decided to step in and help you along. Think of it like a deus ex machina, of sorts." Suddenly, Kaneki felt a cold-almost frozen-hand press itself against his cheek, immediately making him realize how close the woman had gotten when she was speaking. "Now, this won't hurt a bit."

A wave of panic would've hit the young man if the memories-his memories-hadn't hit him first.

All at once… All together… E-everything…!

Every single, little detail…All of the pain and emotion that Kaneki had ever dealt with in his life poured into his mind, or rather, Haise's mind. Unfortunately, his counterpart wasn't taking it well at all. His body thrashed violently under the unknown woman's grasp, and, if it weren't for the blood in his mouth, he no doubt would have been screaming. As it was, the choked gurgles coming from his throat were a decent indicator of his distress. Whatever happened after that, Kaneki wasn't sure; Haise completely blacked out after all of the memories finished playing out. Though, Kaneki really couldn't say that he minded.

* * *

The moment his eyes shot open, Kaneki found himself staring at his feet instead of the ceiling like how he normally did. Chest heaving in and out sporadically, he reached both his hands up and grabbed his face.

_D-dammit,_ Kaneki cursed weakly, unconsciously digging his nails into the skin of his face. _Who—No, what in the hell was that woman? How did she—?_

That train of thought was abruptly cut off by the sound of someone knocking, or rather pounding, on his door. Turning his head towards the digital clock on his desk to confirm his thought, the tired half ghoul internally asked, _Who in the world could that be at this hour of night?_

Letting out a tired sigh, Kaneki forced himself and his aching up body from his bed, and then made his way over to already mentioned door. Cracking his left index finger, he unlocked the door and pulled it open to reveal who knocked on it.

Standing there were all four of his teammates, all of which with uncharacteristically troubled expressions splayed across their faces. Taking note of said expressions, the half ghoul asked, scratching at the back of his head with his left hand as he did so, "Um…is there something wrong?" Desperately wanting to see their downcast expressions go away, he forced a smile on to his lips, raised his new left hand and half-heartedly joked, "Hey, look, my arm grew back! I really didn't expect it to be up to this sort of **scale**, though."

Unfortunately, none of them laughed…

**-Chapter End-**

So, how was that? I did a lot of things in the past seven thousand words. I'm sure that some of you think that I did a little _too _much given the pace I was taking things the past few chapters, but I just sort of felt like I needed to start kicking things into gear.

Now, I'm sure that there are some of you that think I came up with all of this on the fly and that's why the previous chapter was essentially a filler chapter, but that's really not the case. I'm not someone who really likes to do filler. When I write, I like to keep moving the plot along as much as I deem fit at the time being, so when the need for filler comes along, I start to struggle and I don't typically like to struggle. It's actually one of the reasons why the chapter came out much later than it should have.

So, what does that mean? Well, it means that I don't like doing filler and I wouldn't have done it unless it was one-hundred percent necessary, and I did feel that it was one-hundred percent necessary. I felt like that after everything that happened in the chapters previous, I decided to add a shot of levity to the story.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that everything I did in this chapter was one-hundred percent planned to be in the story. The only thing that I improvised was the speed that I implemented them. Originally, when I first started writing the chapter, I wanted to stretch all of those things out, but I decided that I needed to quicken the pacing of the story up a good bit.

Was it a good idea? Probably not, but I did it anyways. So…um, deal with it. Also, if you found any of the information I threw at you, deal with that too. That was also very intentional.


	17. Chapter 15: Event Horizon

Hey, what's up guys. So, by the time this chapter gets released to the public, it'll be somewhere around Halloween. Of course, I wish everyone who's going out and partaking in any entailed festivities a good and most importantly, safe night. Don't get murdered by any roaming, serial-killer clowns using the holiday and internet trend as cover. Watch your candy, make sure that there are no razor blades lodged inside. Deploy protection if any of you manage to get lucky at a party, or something. Whatever. Just don't die.

Anyway, onto information that actually relates to the story. So, you might have all noticed that it took me quite a bit of time to get this thing out. Depending on whenever this chapter goes up, it'll have been about two months to the day since I posted chapter fourteen, which is somewhere around the amount of time it took me to post latter chapter. So, why the sudden decrease in production? Well, it's a culmination of a lot of things really.

Remember, when I said that I wouldn't allow school affect the speed at which I write my content? Well, I lied. Not in the traditional sense, mind you, but nonetheless, it's been affecting how much time I have to write. You see, I'm a part of the video production program at my high school and making content for that has taken a good chunk of my free time. I'm literally coming in three hours before I should be (I have open periods in the morning, don't worry) to edit and shoot videos sometimes. Thankfully, I don't do it every single day, but it was still happening at a frequency of at least once a week. So, yeah, as you can probably tell, that didn't really afford me a lot of time to be focusing on my writing, even if I do primarily write on my phone.

The fact that I've also started a new story that also follows a deadline system probably doesn't help. The fact that I set that's story deadline to a month's time probably doesn't help free up any time for me either. So, yeah, your boy really set himself up for failure, didn't he?

Well, whatever. Anyway, the point is, expect these chapters to be coming out more towards the end of the two month deadline more. Also, you probably shouldn't be expecting anything over ten-thousand words anytime soon. I honestly just don't have enough time to do something like that anymore-something that I became painfully aware of in the past few weeks. I really, **really** wanted to do more with this chapter-a fact that'll probably become really obvious to you guys by the end of the chapter-but by the time I got to writing all that I wanted to do for the end, it was already five days to the deadline and I still needed time for Chyna to edit everything. So, the end of this chapter is kind of abrupt.

That's pretty much it. I just wanted to tell you all of that, before we got the chapter started. Oh, and by the way, stick around and read the end author's notes. After what you're all about to read, you're going to want to hear an explanation. Trust me.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I honestly don't even see the point of having this here anymore. I think it's just a habit at this point.

**-Chapter 15: Event Horizon-**

Silence.

Kaneki, being the loner he was, never minded the void created when noise ceased to exist. It wasn't that he particularly liked it; he just found its presence comforting at times. Unfortunately for him, however, the last eight minutes of his life definitely wasn't one of those times.

For the past eight-now nine-minutes, a borderline torturous silence had reigned over the five members of Team RWBY. None of them looked particularly eager to break it.

_What in the hell happened when they were out on those errands?_ Kaneki asked himself, shifting in his desk chair-which had been pulled away from the desk itself and set in front of his bed. Turning his gaze to the floor, he ran both of his hands through his freshly salt-and-peppered hair. He glanced up at his teammates through his bangs as they fell back into place; all four of which were staring back at him uncertainly from their place on his bed. _Nothing's ever made them act like this before...Not even after what happened at the docks...So what possibly could've—?_

"Kaneki…you aren't hiding anything from us, right?" Ruby asked him suddenly, completely derailing the half-ghoul's train of thought. He, of course, didn't fail to notice the hesitation in her voice.

Taken off guard by the sudden accusation, Kaneki raised his head to meet his team leader's gaze and narrowed his eyes at her. "Wait, what?" he asked, incredulous.

_'Hiding something'?_ The young man parroted the phrase to himself, baffled by the accusation. Or at least, he was, until he realized what exactly she may be referring to. _Could she be talking about…? What? N-no, of course not! There's no way any of them could've found out about that! Unless…_

"What even brought this on?" The half ghoul asked, making sure to keep his voice level, so as to not cause Ruby any distress. The atmosphere in the room was already tense enough as it was. There was no way he was going to attempt to do anything that might exacerbate it. "Was it something that happened when you were out running those 'errands'?"

"Well…" Ruby began, but trailed off as she took a quick sideways glance over at the three sitting besides her. Eventually, she nodded and continued what she was saying. "...Yeah, you could say that."

"Then, what was it?" Kaneki continued to press the girl with questions, cursing to himself silently when he heard the intensity that was present in his voice. The change wasn't a major shift, but it was definitely a noticeable one, and that was already far more than he was comfortable with allowing.

Thankfully, the fifteen year old he was talking to was the same one who could stare down a horde of Grimm and not even flinch. As such, the shift in his voice was barely even noticed by the girl, though he couldn't say the same about her older sister, who immediately moved to take control of the conversation.

"Look, we just went out into town to look for some information on that Torchwick guy you and Blake ran into at the docks," Yang explained, her tone adopting the same subtle edge as his had.

Kaneki's narrowed gaze instinctively turned into a glare the moment he heard that edge in the blonde's voice. "_And?_" He asked, a crack coming from his right side as he did so.

"_And_, we happened to run into a little someone who claimed to know you," Yang replied, her voice bristling with annoyance. "I would like to think pretty well too, considering the way she talked about you."

_Dammit, Neo… _Kaneki cursed the name of his counterpart's former love interest,the tips of his fingers began into the fabric of his pants. _What the hell did you do?!_

"And, what exactly did she talk to you about?" The young man asked, making sure to keep his tone as calm and level as possible-an admittedly hard task given the frustration that was rising up in the cavity of his chest.

The blonde opened her mouth to respond, but an entirely other voice ended up speaking, for the first time since she stepped into the room-a fact that wasn't at all lost to the half-ghoul.

"What exactly she said to us doesn't matter," Blake stated, her voice instantly drawing Kaneki's attention. "All that matters is the fact that you blatantly weren't telling me the truth earlier." The lack of any emotion in her voice caused his fingers to dig even deeper into the fabric of his pants. Sucking in a deep breath through her nostrils, she continued, "Earlier at the docks, you told me—"

"—I told you the truth," Kaneki interrupted his dark-haired teammate, barely keeping himself from snapping at the girl. "Outside of fighting her those couple of times, I have never, repeat, never-" he made sure to put a good amount of emphasis on that last 'never', "-interacted with that woman before in my life."

"Then how—?" Yang tried to interject once again, but Kaneki stopped her before she could finish.

"I don't know," he groaned, massaging the bridge of his nose. What he was saying wasn't completely true, technically speaking, and he knew as much, but there still was truth to it. All of it, the entire situation concerning Haise, Neo, his past, and the half ghoul's sudden involvement in it was just so convoluted, that it was almost as if he didn't know anything at all. Hell, he was just barely able to figure out what exactly he _felt_ about the entire situation, much less what was actually going on. "Honestly, I have no clue what's going on with that woman."

"You don't know anything?" Blake asked. Her tone was as dry and empty as a desert.

At first, when the question first reached his ears, Kaneki thought about nodding in response to it, but he was able to stop himself before he could. The last thing he wanted to do was dig an even bigger hole for himself, and he knew getting caught in a lie would do just that, especially right now. So, he did the only thing he could, and told Blake what he probably should have told her a long time ago.

"No." He told her the truth. "I do."

* * *

"Wait, what exactly do you mean?" It was now Blake's turn to pose the question to the young man sitting before her. The fact that she had to even ask it caused the hole sitting at the bottom of her stomach to grow even larger.

Kaneki raised his newly-reformed left hand up to his mouth and cleared his throat into its jet-black scales. He turned his eyes away, staring at the wall-another act that only served to widen the ever-growing hole inside of her-and answered. "I know a few things, but nothing more than the bare bones of it all." A troubled frown suddenly appeared on his lips, finally smashing through the stoic facade that he had been attempting to employ the entirety of the conversation.

"Then, what are you waiting for?" Weiss asked impatiently. "Hurry up and tell us what you know already!"

After once again being met with nothing more than silence, Blake was worried that Kaneki wouldn't answer. However, those worries were dashed when he suddenly opened his mouth and said, "She believes me to be someone from her past-someone named Haise Sasaki."

"What?" Weiss asked. Her voice was as skeptical as her ponytail was white. "Do you two happen to share an extremely uncanny resemblance with one another, or something?"

Her question caused the half ghoul to go into a bout of silence, that Blake could only assume was contemplative in nature. "Yeah, I guess you could say that," he answered, with a noticeably hesitant nod of his head. "I mean, I am using his body, after all."

The moment she heard those words leave his mouth, the Faunus's eyes snapped open as an all too familiar grouping of words played out in her head. The words had been seared into it, so it wasn't that hard to do.

_"__**This body is…mine…MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!**__"_

"You're 'using his body'? What—?" Blake began to ask, but the half ghoul cut her, off before she could finish.

"This body doesn't belong to me," said Kaneki as he turned his head so that he was facing down at his hands, which were both sitting interlaced idly on his lap. His voice got more solemn as he continued, "I'm not the original me at all… It just happened to look like mine."

"H-how do you know?" The question left Ruby's lips with an expected confusion in it.

"…Memories," the half ghoul answered with a fair deal of hesitation to his voice. "Every once in awhile, I would catch a glimpse of some of Haise's memories." A crack. "I got to see one right before you all got here actually." Another crack, this time from the left. "It told me how I got here to Remnant." Chuckling sardonically, he reached up with both his hands and ran them through his mismatched hair. Halfway through they suddenly stopped, clenching tightly onto his hair. Inhaling sharply through his nostrils, the explanation continued in a much less serious and slightly more hysterical tone.

"Memories…all I am is memories." His body started to shake. "I was never brought here; someone just took my memories and put them in some dying husk." He started shaking in earnest, most likely due to his sudden bout of frighteningly hysterical laughter. "I'm nothing but a goddamn parasite!" He suddenly threw his head back and slumped his body on to the back of his chair. "A pile of maggots that's taken over the carcass its feeding on…tha-that's all I am!" He suddenly sounded much more tired. "I can't believe myself sometimes…"

For a while, Blake and her teammates could only stare at the young man as he spoke. He just kept rambling and rambling, and stopping him seemed impossible. It became apparent to the four of them that the memory he told them about had caused him to be in this state, but knowing what caused it did very little to help them get him out of it.

"Hey, do you all want to know something I've been keeping from you all for a while now?" Kaneki abruptly asked as he slowly shifted his head back down to face them. His eyes looked even more dull than usual. "I stopped caring about getting back home weeks ago."

Hearing that caused Blake's eyes to widen in shock. That was the very last thing she ever expected him to say, and by just taking a quick glance over at her other teammates, she could tell they thought the same.

"It wasn't like this at first, but I seriously can't see myself leaving Remnant," Kaneki spoke in a very wistful way. "I'm just way too happy here…it's almost as if I'm living in a dream, or something." As he continued to speak, he began to sound more and more tired. "To be honest, I wish I was actually just dreaming." The faintest hint of a bitter smile appeared as he added, "That way, I'd feel just a little less guilty about not wanting to wake up yet."

"Kaneki…" Ruby said suddenly, immediately drawing everyone's attention to her. "…Do you really not want to go back home?"

At first, stunned silence was all that came from the half ghoul, but eventually, he let out an affirmatory hum. "Yeah."

"Then, that should be that, shouldn't it?" The young team leader asked, offering him a smile. "I'm sure that your friends would want you to be happy. Right?"

Kaneki's eyes widened when he heard Ruby say that. He just stared at her for a good while before eventually flashing her a grateful smile. "Yeah, you're probably right," he answered. His lips started to quiver suddenly. "But I can't help but feel bad." Water began to pool in the corners of his eyes. "Here I am, talking about how I don't want to go back, while I feel like garbage at the thought of never being able to see them again."

"Hey short-stuff, you really need to stop being so hard on yourself," Yang cut in suddenly. "It isn't like you specifically wished for all this to happen." Before he could say anything back in response, she got up from where she sat, strode over to where he sat and placed a hand on his left shoulder. "You were dealt a crappy hand in one round and a better one the next," she said, flashing him a toothy grin. "No one's gonna blame you for wanting to play it."

"Yeah, you really need to stop thinking that everything lies solely on your shoulders." It was now Weiss's turn to walk up the young half ghoul and place a hand on his opposite shoulder. "I'm the only person on this team that gets to act self-centered, do you understand?"

Blake, not being one to stand by as others took action, also stood up and went over to Kaneki. Once she did, she did something that she hoped would never get mentioned outside this one instance. Face blushing bright red, she cupped his face in her hands and pulled on it lightly, angling it so that he was looking up at her. Her heart started to beat faster as she stared into the fuzzy pools of grey that were his eyes, which were filled with a mixture of confusion and, somehow, understanding. She didn't know how a combination like that was even possible; and honestly, she didn't care at that point.

Moving quickly, Blake leaned down and smashed her lips against his. At the moment contact was made, she felt a surge of electricity run through her body, striking all of her nerves with the need for more. She wanted to keep feeling the strangely pleasurable contrast of his chapped lips against her's. She wanted to keep tasting the faint bitter taste of coffee that stubbornly remained on his lips, despite her dislike of it. She wanted to keep feeling the deep sense of satisfaction that ran rampant within her when she felt him start to return the gesture. Truth be told, Blake just wanted more of _him_.

Unfortunately, however, she knew that, despite what she might want, she couldn't stay like that with him forever. Eventually, she broke contact with the half ghoul after a full, one-hundred percent not elongated count of six seconds passed by.

When she did so, Blake immediately took note of how Kaneki leaned forward a bit to try and re-establish contact with her, and felt more satisfaction run through her. She quickly squashed that feeling when she remembered that she wanted to tell him something.

"What they're telling you is true." Blake wrapped her arms around his head and pulled it softly into her chest as she spoke. "I can't stand to watch you act like that, so could you just please stop with all of that white knight stuff and start acting like the person you say you are?"

Silence is what met her in response for a few moments, before he finally answered. "Yeah, I can definitely do that. Just indulge me and my selfishness for a little while, alright?"

"Alright," Blake replied, resting her chin on top of his head.

"Hey! That's no fair!" Ruby suddenly whined, quickly drawing everyone's attention and reminding Blake of all of the other people in the room with her and Kaneki. "You seriously couldn't have waited a couple of seconds for me to join the group hug, _before_ you went and did something like that?"

All four members of the aforementioned 'group hug' glanced over at each other, before they all began to ask, "What—?"

"Don't you dare ask me about what I'm talking about!" Ruby exclaimed, so vehemently that Blake could practically see hellfire spewing from her mouth. "You all know that I've been trying to set up the group hug for months now, but you guys kept saying no!" She pointed an accusing finger at Blake. "Now there is one, and you had to go and do something like that before I got to join in! I demand a do over this instant!"

The rest of the team, Kaneki included, couldn't help but laugh at the outburst.

"Stop laughing! I'm very serious about this!"

* * *

Once all of the laughing died down, Blake found herself at the center of everyone's attention. It wasn't like she minded it, though. After what she did to Kaneki, she would've been stupid to not have expected as much.

Speaking of Kaneki, he had taken what she did surprisingly well. Truth be told, leading up to it all, a good part of her believed that he would try and reject her advances, but…he didn't. He didn't reject her at all. Instead, he accepted her wholeheartedly, and knowing that he did made her feel all kinds of warm on the inside.

Blake knew that it was stupid and immature for her to care about such a thing, especially when she still had the White Fang to deal with, but she just couldn't help it. All of her feelings for him were just forced out of her when she saw him acting like that. It hurt to see him act like that-to see him act like he was so incredibly lonely when he had four friends, all of which willing to help him, sitting right in front of him.

Seeing him act that way made her feel a lot of things. Confused, saddened and most of all, it made her angry-insulted her, even. To think that, despite everything they've gone through as teammates and as…whatever they were to each other, he'd have the audacity to act like he was the only person who cared about what he was having to go through… It really made her feel like she was insignificant in his eyes. Her being a former, high-ranking member of the White Fang, it really wasn't a feeling she liked to feel very often, though that could probably be said about pretty much everyone.

"So, Blake…" Ruby started suddenly, quickly pulling the bow-wearing Faunus away from her thoughts and onto the young team leader, "…when did you guys, um…" She pressed the tips of her index fingers together and shifted her gaze, visibly struggling to get whatever words that were stuck inside of her throat out. "…Y'know, decide to get together?"

Blake blinked in response to her team leader's question, not having expected it to come from her. Honestly, that kind of thing seemed more like Yang's style. "When did we decide to get together?" She parroted, glancing sideways at Kaneki. "Do you mean like—?"

"Y-yeah!" Ruby stuttered, cutting Blake off completely. Scratching the back of her head sheepishly, she continued. "I was just wondering since, y'know, you kissed him like…well, like how you did."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Blake asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

"Well, Blake, you have to admit that you were very…upfront with how you chose to perform it," Weiss explained on her partner's behalf, "and you're not someone who's typically so open with their emotions, so I think that my partner was just curious if that was the case or not."

_Ah, it makes a lot of sense for them to wonder that actually,_ Blake thought, pondering her earlier actions. What she just did definitely wasn't typical of her. If her life was a novel, there was no doubt in her mind that the reader would've seen such a blatant breach in character and thought it was just a way to rush along a romance between two characters, so she really couldn't blame them for being curious about what caused it.

"Oh," Blake shook her head as she gave them her answer, "then no, the two of us weren't in a relationship prior to me kissing him."

All three of the other female members of team RWBY blinked at her, their eyes wide with what Blake could only assume was shock. "What?" She asked, being just as confused as the three were.

"Oh, nothing~!" Ruby exclaimed, scratching the back of her head. She let out a sheepish chuckle.

That, of course, didn't fool Blake one bit, but she decided to not push the issue this time. "Okay then," she began tiredly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Do any of you have anything else to you want to ask me, before we get back to what we were talking about earlier?"

Blake noticed Yang slowly raise her hand, only to have it be dragged right back down to her waist by Ruby. That, of course, prompted the blonde to try and raise her other hand, but her efforts once again ended in failure, this time being foiled by Weiss. If their reality was a cartoon, Blake was sure that what she just saw would've been accompanied by the sound of a slide whistle.

"Alright," Blake said, seeing that there were absolutely no objections to her previous proposal, "back to what we were talking about earlier, then." She turned to face Kaneki, who had spent all of the earlier conversation sitting next to her quietly. She opened her mouth, but suddenly found herself hesitant to speak upon seeing his face.

He was smiling. It was faint, almost unnoticeable on his lips, but it would have been a crime to say that it wasn't there. The last time he had discussed his other self, Kaneki went into complete hysterics. Did Blake really want to drag that back out of him after having just recovered from it? No, not at all.

That worry must've shown itself on her face, because almost immediately after it began to well up inside of her, Kaneki flashed her that smile of his and said, "It's okay, I'm going to be fine. You just caught me at a bad time earlier."

Blake's first instinct was to be skeptical of that claim. It wouldn't be unlike him to try and mask his real feelings from others just to reassure the people around him, after all.

"…You're going to be alright talking about this?"

"Mhm," Kaneki hummed affirmatively, before doing something that made her cheeks alarmingly warm. Slowly, tentatively, he reached over and took one of her hands in one of his own, applying a surprisingly small amount of pressure upon making contact. "Besides," he said softly, the smile on his lips suddenly growing larger, "I have you to calm me down if I start to go too off the rails again, right?"

"Of course," Blake replied, making sure to show absolutely zero hesitation as she did so. "Didn't I already promise to do as much?"

"Yeah," Kaneki's smile widened even further as he let out a quiet snort through his nostrils. "You did promise that, didn't you?"

"What?" Blake heard Ruby whisper under her breath thanks to her very literally inhuman ability. She was probably talking to Yang, considering the blonde sat directly in between her and Weiss. "When did she promise to do that?"

"I don't think Blake's being literal, sis," Yang explained. "I think they're doing that thing that people who love each other do."

"Ohhhhh," the younger girl replied, still whispering. "Do you mean that thing that mom and dad used to do, where they would understand what the other was saying without having to say a lot?"

"Yeah, something like that," the older blonde whispered back in reply, which made one of Blake's brows twitch in annoyance.

Holding back the need to glare at the two half-sisters, the Faunus kept her eyes directed at the young man sitting in front of her and began to ask him the questions she had meant to ask him earlier, before all of that crazy and lovey-dovey stuff started happening.

* * *

Blake felt her brows furrow subconsciously as she listened to Kaneki explain the relationship that existed between Haise Sasaki-the previous owner of the body he was currently inhabiting-and the woman who assumedly served Roman Torchwick as his shadow-Neopolitan, or 'Neo' for short.

When the Faunus initially asked the half ghoul to try and explain what exactly was going on between Haise and Neo, she only expected to get one thing back: an explanation that would leave her asking more questions than she got answers. Unfortunately, that's exactly what she got.

The problem with Kaneki's explanation was that he himself didn't know all of the details, despite being in the body that created those details to begin with. All that he really knew about it came from the few flashbacks that he received after his initial meeting with Neo at the settlement. Those didn't tell him much at all, only the relationship's beginning and its eventual end. The middle portion was completely beyond him.

Apparently, the two-Haise and Neo-first met when they were much younger, living in the same orphanage. While there, they somehow managed to become close friends with one another, despite the distinct dichotomy that existed between both of their personalities. Haise was the kind and timid pushover, while Neo was the demeaning and cocky one who didn't like to be disrespected.

At some point, years in the future, the two left the orphanage and got themselves wrapped up in the criminal underworld-a life that didn't at all agree with Haise, who apparently couldn't bring himself to hurt a fly.

Of course, in the dog-eat-dog world that was the criminal underground, that sort of nature wasn't taken too kindly. His reluctance to hurt another human being garnered him a lot of enemies-one of which ended up Neo herself, who eventually severed all ties with Haise because of it. At least, that was Kaneki's interpretation of what went on in the other flashbacks he received-the ones that showed him the end of Haise and Neo's relationship.

The flashbacks told him that one day, as the two were flying over the Emerald Forest in a BullHead, Neo both figuratively and literally stabbed him in the back, before throwing him out the side of the BullHead while it was still in mid-flight, leaving her once childhood friend to plummet to the ground and certain death below, if not for whatever force that had brought Kaneki to Remnant.

Why would Neo do something like that to a person she'd known and been friends with since they were kids? It was a question all the members of team RWBY asked-fervently-of Kaneki the moment he finished with his explanation, but he was unable to give an answer that was a lot more than just his own opinion on things.

"So, basically, what you're saying is that you believe that Neo betrayed Haise because of how much of a pacifist he was?" Weiss asked, pretty much summarizing what the half ghoul just explained to the four of them.

Kaneki blinked quizzically in response to the heiress's question, eyes shifting towards the ceiling for a moment before they reverted back to their original position, locked firmly onto Weiss's eyes. "Yeah," he stated with a quick nod of his head, "pretty much."

Slender fingers wrapped around the tip of her chin, Weiss let out a light, contemplative hum and mumbled, "Well, this certainly complicates things."

"You can say that again," Ruby agreed quickly. Letting out an exasperated sigh, the fifteen year old allowed herself to lean back and fall onto the concrete she and the other three had been sitting down on ever since Blake and Kaneki took over the bed. "Ugh…I don't understand any of this at all."

Just like her two teammates before her, Blake also found herself completely confounded by the information that was just presented to her.

It wasn't that there was a clear discrepancy between the Neapolitan that Kaneki described and the one that was shadowing Torchwick. No, in all actuality, the description Kaneki gave was a pretty spot-on summary. The woman the half ghoul described sounded like a condescending, conniving person who'd do absolutely anything to further her own goals-exactly the kind of woman that crossed paths with Blake earlier…except for a single, almost unnoticeable slip in form that happened at the very end of their already brief encounter.

_"Just remember this the next time you see him: he was my responsibility a long time before he came crawling over to you, Kitten."_

Blake felt her hands ball up into tight fists as the single line of mocking dialogue played itself over in her head. It came out sounding just like everything else Neo had ever said to her-condescending and purposefully mocking-but there was an emotion that had not been there before. It didn't appear in her tone or facial expression, though. Instead, it showed in the words themselves-it had from the very beginning.

_"So, you're my replacement, huh? Honestly, I didn't think he was the type of guy to go after women who look like they own more baggage than he does."_

Spite.

Really, now that she put some thought into it, Blake realized that, from the very beginning, nearly every word Neo had said carried that very same affect.

Neo just didn't sound like a person who could care less about the person she betrayed.

_"What do you mean 'who are you talking about'? Shouldn't the answer be painfully obvious by now? I'm talking about the hopeless idiot that was hanging off your side last time we met. You know, the one with that tacky white hair."_

No, she didn't sound like that at all. Someone who _really_ didn't care about another person normally wouldn't waste the time or energy talking about them like that.

Blake was well aware that Neo probably just said what she did to try and drive a wedge in between her and Kaneki. That, or-and Blake was pretty sure this was the reason-she did it just to get a rise out of her and throw her off.

Either way, the point was that Blake already knew the reasoning behind Neo's words, and yet they still didn't seem like the actions of a cold and calculating snake who'd betray a friend at a moment's notice. Really, the woman's words more closely resembled that of a jilted ex-girlfriend, envious of their prior attachment's success, then it did anything else.

If the woman really wanted to drive a wedge between her and Kaneki, or to _just_ make her angry, Blake was more than sure that she'd have been able to do so without blatantly trying to establish herself as the 'original', like how she did.

So, the question that currently plagued Blake's mind was, of course, 'why?' Why would Neo-the woman who callously stabbed Haise in the back and then proceeded to throw him out of a moving BullHead-say the things she said?

Of course, there was always the possibility that there was no deeper meaning to what Neo had said. That she only said what she said to screw with Blake's perception of Kaneki, but that, of course, lead to the paradoxical line of thinking that was assuming the direct opposite was also still possible, and that lead to the current dilemma she and, in subsequence, all the three of her teammates-the ones that were with her during her earlier meeting with Neo-had been hard at work trying to solve for the better part of the last thirty minutes. What was Haise and Neo's relationship with one another, back before Kaneki took over Haise's body?

Were the two just childhood friends whose friendship was broken up by selfishness? Or was there something more? When that was answered, they could move on to the question that every member of team RWBY wanted an answer to.

"Um…" The sound of the person sitting next to her humming contemplatively forced Blake to pry her attention away from her prior musings and focus it on Kaneki-an act in which all of her other teammates imitated upon hearing him speak. "…Am I missing something here?"

Silence vibrated through the air after the half ghoul spoke. Silently, the four female members of team RWBY glanced at each other, shooting each other looks, as if to ask one another who'd explain what they were talking about.

Eventually, Ruby opened her mouth to speak on everyone else's behalf. "Well, basically," she began, a slight, knowing drawl creeping into her voice while she clapped her hands together-an act that made it seem like she was about to start telling him some long, detail-heavy explanation-before her entire body itself slumped forwards. Her next words come out in a soft, pathetic whimper, effectively killing any of the momentum that her previous words had given to her. "This entire 'Neo' situation is really, _really _confusing."

After a single blink, Kaneki's entire face soon morphed into a confused expression. Eyes narrowed and brows furrowed, he asked the young team leader, "What do you mean? Was it something in my explanation that confused you, or…?"

"Um…" Ruby began, before then trailing off into a complete, contemplative silence which lasted a few good seconds. Eventually, she found the words she wanted to use. "…It's just–well, you do know that the way you just described 'Neo' made her sound really bad, right?" The half ghoul nodded. "Like really, _really _bad?" He nodded once more. "Well, that's not exactly the impression we got of her, per se."

Blinking once more, Kaneki tilted his head quizzically at Ruby. This prompted Yang to step in and explain what she meant on her behalf. "Don't get us wrong, short-stuff," she said bluntly, her brows furrowing as she closed both of her eyes and placed her hands onto her hips.

"Overall, I, and I'm pretty sure everyone else here thinks that you were pretty spot on with how you described her earlier," she continued. A clear rage splayed itself across her face as she raised both her hands from her hips-one hand balled into a tight fist-and slammed them together angrily. Inhaling a good deal of air in through her nostrils, she held the breath for an entire three seconds, before releasing it and allowing both of her arms fall back down to her sides. "Unfortunately, you were just off with one tiny, little detail."

"Wait, what 'tiny, little detail'?"

"Well, honestly, I don't think she's nearly as bad as you say she is. The things she said…they just weren't the things a stone cold killer would say, if you catch my drift. I could see a bit of what you were talking about back when she took the three of us-" she nudged her head over in the direction of Weiss and Ruby, who had both been sitting next to her, "-hostage, but that wasn't how she acted tonight, like, at all, really. Truthfully, by the way she went on and on about Haise, she sounded like a jealous old ex, or something."

"Hm…" Kaneki hummed to himself, lowering his head, making it so that his gaze was locked down towards the ground. "Thinking back on it, I'm not at all surprised that you all came to that conclusion."

"Why's that?" Weiss asked, speaking up for the first time in the conversation.

"Because a part of me feels the same way," Kaneki answered the question solemnly. "I completely forgot to tell you about this earlier, but back in the flashback of Neo backstabbing Haise, I-or Haise-managed to catch a glimpse of her face before he fell out of the BullHead. From what I saw, she was smiling, but she didn't look pleased to be doing what she was doing." A slight smirk crept onto his face. "In all honesty, I don't think she really wanted to betray Haise at all; or at the very least, she felt bad about it while she did so." A light chuckle vibrated in his throat as he added, "Even then, I'd still trust Beowolves to not claw my throat out over anything she said to me. Neo might not be all bad, but she's still a snake through and through, in my opinion."

Yang chuckled. "Yeah, no one here is going to disagree with you on that, short-stuff," she agreed. "Woman is nearly on Torchwick levels of slimy; like, I'm sure that I'd have to wash my hands if I ever actually touched her."

Kaneki let out another soft chuckle. "As someone who's been in close contact with her before, I have to must admit that you aren't too far off there." His smirk grew larger as he verbally jabbed at the woman-a jab that elicited a quiet giggle from Blake, though his exact wording annoyed her slightly.

"'Close contact', eh?" Yang repeated, both of her brows raised suggestively. "Keep talking like that and I'm going to start thinking what she said about her and Haise is true."

All of the amusement on the half ghoul's face instantly disappeared, replaced with a look of complete shock and befuddlement. "O-oh?" he asked. "She said things like that to you guys?"

"Yeah," Yang answered with the same amount of tact that the gauntlets she used to pound the faces of criminals had. "Woman didn't say much of anything to us; but what few words she did say were aimed at Blake and went along the lines of: 'I knew so and so long before you did and that makes me better than you'-hence why I said that she sounded like a jealous ex-girlfriend earlier."

"Ah," Kaneki hummed in affirmation, shifting his gaze so that it was being directed right down at the floor in front of him, clearly entering a state of contemplation. "I see…"

Seeing a perfect opportunity to segue into the question she had been dying to ask ever since Neo brought the detail to her attention earlier, Blake immediately decided to pounce on it.

"You know, Kaneki," she said-an act that dragged Kaneki's attention away from his thoughts and forced it onto her, "her relationship with Haise wasn't the only thing she talked about."

Kaneki blinked owlishly before replying. "Really? What else did she talk about?"

"_You should really talk to him about dying his hair back to its original color, by the way. I'm a much bigger fan of black."_

Blake sucked in a deep breath through her nose. "Your hair," she said. "I know that this probably goes without saying now, but white isn't its original color, is it?"

The moment those words left her mouth, Kaneki immediately came to a stand still. His entire body stopped moving, all at the same time. It was almost as if, for a split second in time, his entire body had managed to lock itself into a permanent state of stasis. He didn't move, he didn't blink, he didn't even breathe. For several seconds, Kaneki just sat frozen in place, staring at her.

"K-Kaneki, are you—?" Ruby tried to speak, but before she could finish, she was ultimately cut off by the very person she was trying to reach.

"No," he interrupted, his tone as empty as the abyss itself, "white isn't my original hair color."

"Then how—?" Weiss tried to ask, but she too was cut off before she could finish.

"Natural," Kaneki stated, his gaze now firmly planted into the floor that lay between his feet. "It turned white naturally."

"'Naturally'? How could hair turn from black to white natural-?" It was now Yang's turn to try and ask a question, only to, once again, be cut off by the person it was meant for.

"Can we please not talk about this?" Kaneki asked. His voice sounded desperate, despite the fact that it didn't contain any emotion whatsoever. "If you don't already know, then trust me, it's not something you want to know about."

Silence reigned over the members of RWBY. That was, until Blake opened her mouth and asked, "Why?" Reaching over, she tried to envelope both his hands-which had now been balled into what looked like painfully tight fists-with her own in an attempt to get him to keep talking. However, the moment she got close enough to do so, he pulled-no, more like flinched-out of reach. It told the Faunus all that she needed to know.

This wasn't going to be something she could help him with.

"I-I…I…" As he tried to reply, Kaneki suddenly sprang back into motion: his once frozen body started trembling violently, his once placid breathing became erratic. "…I-I…" A cracking noise suddenly split through the air. "…I-it hurts s-so much…and p-pain–it caused me to have to go blank."

_"__**It…it hurts so much… My toes-my fingers-they're completely numb… I can't feel them at all.**__"_

Another crack tore the air.

_"__**Stop…please stop…please stop taking them…**__" _

More cracks-no, at this point, they sounded much more like snapping.

_"__**I-I can't take watching them regrow again.**__"_

"O-oh," Blake heard Ruby suddenly gasp in what she had to assume was both horror and realization. "Oh no… Kaneki…"

"R-Ruby?" Yang said, her tone filled with worry. "Why are you…?"

"T-t-ten…" Kaneki cut the blonde short as he continued on with his rambling, "…d-d-days, he wouldn't s-stop…"

_Ten days…?_ Blake repeated disbelievingly. _He can't be serious._

"N-not safe…even w-when he was gone…" Kaneki's eyes had glassed over; at this point, Blake wasn't even sure he was speaking to them. "Sh-she would come…Keeps telling me…It's my fault…my fault, my fault, my fault, my fault…Too weak… My fault…T-too weak…I-it's all my fault…"

Blake, not knowing how else to stop him from slipping further into his hysteria, leaned over and wrapped her arms around his trembling body, pulling him into a tight embrace. She briefly thought about saying something to him to get him to calm down faster, but she was at a complete loss as to what to tell him. So instead, she settled on holding him close and hoping that it would be enough to calm him down.

"The centipede… I-in my head… It k-keeps crawling and biting…clawing and biting up inside of my head… I can hear it…"

The moment he said that, Blake knew that it was going to be a while before he recovered.

**-Chapter End-**

So, if you're reading this, I'm sure you asking yourself about why I decided to pick now to start sailing the main ship of the story. Well, if you're like some people, you're questioning why I'm sailing any ships at all, despite the fact that one of this story's main genres is 'romance', but I digress.

I decided to pick now, simply because I felt like it was time. I've been building up the CatBug ship since the second goddamn chapter of this story-the sixth chapter was when it got really obvious for everyone, but still-which I feel like is more than enough time for me to justify these two people liking each other. If not, then I honestly don't know how much time is really appropriate. Like, what could I have done? Keep having them beat around the bush? People, I've already had them sleep in the same bed as one another half-naked! I can't keep justifying them not doing _something_ to state their feelings for one another. Them bumping faces was going to have to happen eventually-'eventually' just so happened to mean this chapter.

*Deep breath*

My tirade done. I sincerely hope you enjoyed the chapter. Again, sorry about that rather abrupt ending, but like I said, time has not been on my side these past couple months. Also, the above 'bumping faces' scene was the first time I've ever attempted to put something like that to keyboard, so I hope it wasn't too bad. I could use the criticism if any of you have experience in such things.

P.S: I had this plan to start this chapter's AN with something that resembled a sort of blog post-type thing. It pretty much detailed my current status as a "high school poverty boy" (I'm not really under the poverty line, don't worry) and how might be a good way for me to make money. It would have detailed all the rewards I would have given to any patrons (it all pretty much consisted of: giving people access to the unedited versions of the story as I finished them-which would mean not having to wait for content two full months at a time, commissions of varying length-depending on how much you donated-written by me, etc). I would've went into all of the pros and cons of the decision, before then realizing how much of a fucking idiot I would be to think that people would actually pay for the shit I write. What would occur after would be pretty much a self-deprecating rant about how, at best, I'm probably only mediocre compared to other, better writers and I still needed a good amount of work before I should even consider being paid for what I love to do.

If you ask why I didn't go through with that plan. Well, would you really want to read all that? I probably would've started going down so many tangents that you'd swear I was writing about trigonometry. Also, the whole thing just sounds sort of narcissistic, doesn't it? I mean, yeah, I'd be hating myself for half the time, but I'd still just be talking about me, myself and I for such a long period of time…

Hm, that's kind of like what I've doing for this entire author's note, isn't it?

…

…

…

FUCK!


	18. Poem Interlude: A Coat

Hey guys, it's With Death Comes More Death with one of those poems I'm sure you all love and totally don't think are pointless.

Anyway, here's the poem. I'm just going to assume that all you guys are intelligent enough to figure out whose perspective this poem is coming to you from without me telling you.

So, bye. Have fun with the rest of your days, I guess.

**-Poem Interlude: A Coat-**

Coats are meant to shield.  
Mainly from things that are cold.  
Cold metal, cold wind,  
A coat protects from all those.

Not a year ago,  
There were no coats in the world.  
A dog eat dog world,  
That's the old world I lived in.

So, when cold hit me,  
It hit all at the same time,  
Sent me careening,  
Down into a mess of leaves.

And, like a child,  
I didn't know how to act.  
The cold chilled my blood,  
I let it weaken my knees.

My bones turned brittle.  
Metaphorically, they snapped,  
Under my own weight,  
I'm not entirely sure.

All those things happened,  
To deny would be to lie.  
So, I won't do that.  
I will allow myself that.

An excuse to lie,  
To lie here, still on the dirt,  
Drowning in my blood.  
Accepting an invasion.

Of body and mind,  
I was no longer feeling.  
I didn't need it.  
I didn't need anything.

When the world itself,  
Turns itself to see someone,  
Back in the mirror.  
Looking at you feet to face,

Numbness seems ideal.  
To sit back, watch everything.  
To see someone else,  
Other than yourself live life,

It just seems ideal,  
To lean back and enjoy it.  
This roller coaster,  
A ride I'm already sick of.

Away over here,  
I can't get sick anymore.  
I told myself that.  
I thought I would listen to me.

Still, I intervened,  
Cut power to the coaster,  
Took the invader,  
Made him listen for a bit.

I need him greatly,  
My protection from the cold.  
Really, he's a coat.  
He's nothing more, nothing less.

A piece of fabric,  
I can use for whatever.  
To protect myself,  
Or to protect someone else.

She needs a someone,  
To drape a coat onto her.  
Someone who can be,  
A warm person acting cold.

I'm not that person.  
I'm not that person at all.  
Just someone who's cold,  
Trying to act vice versa.

That surprise, shouldn't.  
Back when the rivers flowed red.  
The two streams diverged,  
A certain point, didn't they?

Only the cold need,  
Something like a warm coat, right?

**-Poem End-**

By the way, this poem is about a coat. Just a coat. Absolutely nothing more than a coat. Don't even try and look too deep into it.


	19. Chapter 16: Two-Headed Boy

Hey, happy holidays everybody! As you can see, it's me, With Death Comes More Death, and I'm back with yet another new chapter for your eyeballs to enjoy reading.

Now, before I begin rambling on about all the other stuff I want to talk about, I have to say that I honestly don't think this chapter is anything too special really. Hell, I'm sure some of you might see it and see yet another filler chapter, or something, and I wouldn't blame you if you did see it that way. Outside of doing some character-building, this chapter doesn't really get anything done in terms of plot progression (which will happen next chapter, I guran-fucking-tee it), so it technically is just a filler chapter. I mean, I guess the better term for it would be a transitory chapter, as I _am_ using it to start the transition over to the next arc I have planned, but that still doesn't change the fact that this chapter doesn't get much at all done and I just wanted to say that before you start typing it in your reviews.

Unlike what some of you may think, I am aware of what I'm doing when I write. I don't just randomly put ideas onto a page and expect it to stick. Every sentence I write for a story, I put a good amount of thought into and if I don't like it, I take it out. Like, I've reached a point where I'm pretty much looking over every sentence I type out at least three times, just to make sure I worded everything out right. Now, I know that I've probably already told you all this before, but I just wanted to make that clear once more.

Why? Well, last chapter, I got a fair amount (not a lot, but I received it nonetheless) of criticism for how I portrayed Kaneki last chapter. More specifically, people asked me why I decided to make him seem like a crybaby bitch. Each time, they would bring up the argument that he acted so much more badass in original series. Now, if some of those people would stop hiding behind the anonymity of a guest review and let me actually respond to you individually, I would tell you, politely, that I know and what you just told me is _your_ view of Kaneki. Please respect the fact that I see a character in a different light than you do. Thank you.

Now, my ranting done, I have to thank you guys. At some point after this chapter goes up, I have probably achieved my dream of having a story of mine reach a thousand favorites. That sweet, upper-echelon that not many get to reach–to hit that mark would validate the almost two years of work that I've put into this story and I'm happy to finally reach it.

So, to celebrate that and also the two-year anniversary of this story's creation in two months (my update schedule just so happens to match up with it), I've decided to do something rather special. I'm planning on going through and re-writing/updating each and every chapter of this story, up until the point I got myself a beta-reader (so pretty much chapters 3-8).

Also, I'm going to write a new little side-story that I've created specifically for _TG-R: Prism_, if any of you still remember what that is. Look for it. You're all going to enjoy it, trust me. It happens to involve the TG universe immensely and I know that there are some of you who've been wanting to see that.

You guys get all of that extra stuff AND the regularly scheduled chapter for that cycle, so y'all going to be getting a great deal of content when late-February comes by.

Oh yeah, quick little thing before I go into the mandatory disclaimer, first person to tell me where I got the name of this chapter from gets something fake from me as an reward, as it is an allusion to something out in the real world (Chyna, you don't get to participate).

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

Trying to come up with something for these is really starting to get tiring.

**-Chapter 16: Two-Headed Boy- **

Ruby sighed tiredly as she threw herself onto her bed, allowing the cushy surface to conform to the contours of her frame. She lay there for a moment, staring up at the white ceiling above her, before rolling onto her stomach and groaning into the mattress under her. "Man…today _really_ sucked."

"You can say that again, sis," Yang replied, trudging over to her own bed. She let out a soft sigh. "You can say that again."

A lot of things had happened in the past few hours. If Ruby had to make a list of the most eventful days in her life, she'd have to put the past few hours somewhere at the very top.

First, there was what happened with Penny, and finding out she technically wasn't human. Then, there was the fight with Torchwick, who somehow managed to get his hands on a robot with a whole bunch of guns on it. Then, after that, there was that happened with that 'Neo' girl and the arguments that broke out after it, most of which centered around whether or not Kaneki was really loyal to them. Then, at the very end, after all of that, there was the talk they had had with said half-ghoul.

Ruby had seen him act like that in the past-the one and only time being when he lost control of himself and attacked Penny at the docks-but having that past experience didn't do much to help her get through what she had seen today.

To see someone like Kaneki-someone who could stare down a Deathstalker and somehow manage to come out the scarier of the two-look so deathly afraid of something...It made her feel as though someone had drilled a giant hole out of her stomach; a hole that only expanded more and more with every word that had come from his mouth. The things that Kaneki had _said_…

Ruby shuddered. Just the thought of things like that _actually_ happening to someone was enough to make her sick to her stomach, but having to accept that Kaneki had to _live_ through such things…even worse, for ten days straight...

_Kaneki…_Ruby rolled onto her side, the mental picture of the half ghoul shaking uncontrollably slipping into her mind. _It's just not fair…_

He may not have been specific, but Ruby was no fool. What Kaneki had implied was horrifying in its own right. What did he ever do to deserve to have something…well, something like _that_ to happen to him? Nothing, absolutely nothing. That's what he did. No one, not even the baddest of the bad, could ever deserve to go through all that, but _Kaneki_ of all people? He should've been the last, the _absolute _last person on that list. For some reason, _for_ _some reason_, he was the one to have to go through such things.

Why? Ruby didn't know, but honestly, a large part of her didn't want to. Why even try to justify something that she already knew was utterly unjustifiable? It would be nothing more than a waste of her time and energy.

"Hey, lil' sis, you doing okay?" The sound of Yang's trademark worried voice pulled Ruby away from her thoughts. "You thinking about what happened with Kaneki?"

"Yeah…" Ruby muttered, pushing herself up to a sitting–already anticipating Yang's next move. Doing as she had many times before, the oldest of the two sisters walked over to the younger's bed, jumped on, and plopped herself down next to the latter. Less than a second after that, the blonde had her arm wrapped around the younger sister's shoulders, pulling her close and making it so that Ruby's head was resting on her shoulder.

For a while, the two of them remained in that position, simply trying to find some solace in each other's presence. "Ruby…" Yang began suddenly, only to trail off. It was a moment before she continued. "Do you know what Kaneki was going on about earlier?"

Not having the energy to respond with words, Ruby simply nodded her head against Yang's shoulder, which garnered her a couple of pats to the side of the head.

"Did you want to—?"

The young leader shook her head against her sister's shoulder, leaning more of her weight onto it. "No, not really. I just want to sit here for a bit."

For a moment or two, Yang was dead silent. Glancing up to gauge her reaction, Ruby felt that all-too-familiar stabbing pang of guilt pierce through her chest when she saw a curtain of yellow-blonde hiding violet.

"Y-Yang…?" She said hesitantly. "A-are you—?"

"—So it was that bad, huh?"

Ruby's eyes widened p. Lifting her head up from Yang's shoulder, she asked, "W-what do you mean?"

"What happened with Kaneki, it was that bad, huh?" Yang raised her head up from the ground and stared out at the wall in front of her. "I've never seen him _that_ shook up before, so what it was must've been pretty bad, huh?"

"Yeah…" Ruby replied, her silver eyes finding the spot that her sister's eyes had just left.

Dead silence filled the air between the two of them once again; a silence that wasn't broken, even when Yang suddenly stood up from her position on and strode over to the door of the room.

"Um…Yang, where are you—?" Ruby began to ask hesitantly, but was interrupted before she could finish.

"—I'm going to go check on short-stuff, see if anything's changed," Yang answered, a determined edge lining her words. This relieved Ruby immensely: she had believed that she had angered the blonde with what she said. "You try and get some sleep in the meantime."

With that, Yang opened the door to their dorm room and walked outside, leaving Ruby all by herself to try and make sense of what she had learned today.

* * *

Kaneki didn't know _when_ it happened exactly, but it seemed that, at some point, consciousness had left him. All that he was able to remember was Blake asking him about his hair color, and then…

Pain. _Lots_ and _lots_ of pain.

Not the phantom pains that usually accompanied the memories of his time with Yamori. No, this pain was very, _very_ real. It was almost as if he was back in that terrible room, having to relive every moment of his bones being crushed, skin being torn apart, and muscle fibers being forcibly ripped in two.

The only other time that something like that happened was when—

"Ah, there you are." The all-too-familiar sound of the half ghoul's own voice rang in his ears, which caused his eyes to shoot open. "Looks like all my noise finally paid off." A sheepish chuckle followed soon after. "Sorry about that, by the way. I couldn't think of any other way to get your attention."

Eyes darting over in the direction the voice had come from, Kaneki found himself looking at an all-too-familiar sight.

"You…?" He breathed, pressing the palms of his hands down onto the ground and pushing himself up to a sitting position. His grey eyes narrowing and fists balling, he growled, "You did that?"

In response, his dark-haired counterpart had the **gall** to smile and nod his head.

"W-why?"

"Why?" The being that Kaneki now knew to be Haise Sasaki didn't hesitate in throwing his words right back at him. "Didn't I already tell you why? I needed to have a word with you, but I didn't know any other way to do it, so…" He spread his hands helplessly.

Ken could feel himself become more and more agitated with every word that came out of his counterpart's mouth, so much so that he had to actively hold himself back from lashing out at him. "What? _That's_ your reason?" He could barely keep himself from throwing his head back and letting out a bout of sardonic laughter. "Don't you know how much—?!"

"—that hurt?" Haise finished for him, that sheepish smile of his growing a tad bit wider. "Yeah, of course I know. What? Don't you remember?" He tapped his right index finger against his temple. "Well, I certainly do."

Memories of lying bleeding on the ground flashed through Kaneki's mind. Despite that, he scoffed, averted his gaze and growled out, "You don't **know** anything."

At that moment, the half ghoul would readily admit that he allowed his composure slip a bit. He couldn't help it, something in his head just snapped after that.

"Really now?" That now infuriating smile **still** didn't leave Haise's face as he asked that. It didn't help that he cocked his head to the side when he did so. "Well, I suppose I don't then."

Silently, Kaneki glared at his counterpart, wondering just what in the hell had gotten into his other self. Pushing himself to his feet, a question that sounded much more like a snarl slipped out from his mouth. "So, what exactly _did_ you want to talk to me about?"

Haise didn't answer him verbally. Instead, he spun himself around on a heel, looked back over his shoulder, and gestured with his head for Kaneki to follow.

Knowing by now that questioning the being who resided inside his subconscious would bear him no edible fruit whatsoever, Kaneki narrowed his eyes to display his distrust to his body's original owner. Then, and _only_ then, did he nod his head in response.

It took a moment, but Haise eventually nodded back and began walking forward to some unknown location–an act that Kaneki mimicked immediately after.

* * *

Weiss stood outside the door of Kaneki's room, arms were crossed over her chest and body leaning against the wall opposite to the door. She was waiting patiently for her Blake to come out and tell her answers to the questions that swirled around her head.

Everything that had been thrown at her in the past couple of hours… It was a lot to process in that short of a time.

_Kaneki… _Her view of the door diminished as she focused her eyes onto the ceiling above. _What's going on with you?_

In less than three hours, her perspective of the young man she could confidently call a friend had shifted dramatically.

Now, the heiress wasn't blind. She knew that her one male teammate was a rather troubled individual. She was able to realize that much about him from the first moment she saw his eyes, but that didn't mean she expected to see him completely break down like he had.

It was sort of surreal, really. To see someone who, for the most part, looked so emotionally put together act so...so _fragile_. It was almost as if the young man in front of her had been another person entirely. Still, no matter how much it would've made her feel better, Weiss didn't allow herself to think along those lines: that what she was seeing was only a one time thing that would never see have to see again. No, that was a mindset reserved for the weak-minded and delusional, and she was the absolute farthest from either.

There was something _wrong_ with Kaneki. She had always been straddling the fence with that issue, but now, after what she saw, she knew it to be absolute fact. Now, the problem lay with figuring out what to do with that knowledge.

Admittedly, growing up, Weiss lived in a place that was just far enough away from the filth below that, when the wind started to kick it up into the air, she could watch all the garbage float listlessly by without staining any of her fancy clothing. Therefore, was safe to say that she wasn't the most experienced with dealing with someone who was mentally unwell; excluding, of course, favorite butler, who had always seemed more than a little mentally unstable to her, but that was another story for another time.

Still, despite her lack of experience with the subject, her inner problem solver flared up. Weiss contemplated what she could do to help Kaneki with what was troubling him. The first option that came to mind was to have him see a therapist, as it was clear that he wasn't in the best state of mind, both emotionally and mentally; but after thinking about it, she felt it best to file that one under close-consideration.

It's wasn't that she believed Kaneki didn't need to seek treatment from a professional, nor did she think it wouldn't help him. It was more because she knew that the half ghoul would be vehemently against the idea.

Despite his recent display of vulnerability, Weiss knew that deep down, Kaneki was still the same person he always was; or, at the very least, he would still act like he was after today, to keep her and the other three from worrying. He'd put his problems on the back burner and, the idiot that he was, would allow himself to sit in a vat of his own problems, without letting any of them help.

How did Weiss know that? Well, in general, people tended to do as they did usually and hadn't Kaneki been doing just that the entire time he'd known them? Hiding his problems from them, while trying to fix everything by himself?

So, in Weiss's mind, there was no way Kaneki would willingly agree to getting some professional help for his problems. Sure, they could pressure him into going, but would that _really_ help him in the end? Forcing him to do something, when it was clear that he already had problems with valuing himself? She honestly didn't know.

That left Weiss with no ideas on how to help him. The thought of helping him as a team came to mind, but she quickly shot that idea down, as it quickly occurred to her they _weren't_ therapists–they were teenagers, who had no experience with healing broken minds at all.

In reality, what could they tell Kaneki that would actually help him? There were only so many times in which telling him that everything was going to be alright was going to work, after all.

_Maybe it's really best to not do anything? _Weiss asked herself, allowing her arms to fall to her sides out of exhaustion. The moment that thought came to mind, she despised it. She couldn't stand the thought of it. She wanted to believe that there was something they could do personally to help, but the more she thought it over, the more she was convinced that doing nothing was the best route for them to take.

Shaking her head from side to side violently to keep those kind of thoughts from creeping into her mind, Weiss let out a quiet sigh. Then, right as she covered up her chest with her arms once more and lowered her gaze down towards the floor, she noticed the doorknob to Kaneki's room suddenly twist open.

* * *

"So, how is he?" Blake had not expected to be asked that question as she stepped back out of Kaneki's room, hence why she jumped back a bit upon hearing it. Upon shifting her focus to where the question had came from, she found a pair of concern-filled, pale blue eyes staring back at her.

Still somewhat recovering from her earlier surprise, Blake could only blink at Weiss for a couple of moments before giving the girl a response. "Uh, he's fine…" She averted her eyes to the side as she added, "…the most part."

"For the most part?" Weiss added, a high hint of distress creeping into her voice.

Blake let out an exasperated sigh. "He finally managed to stop shaking, though that was only because he eventually passed out."

"Well," Weiss sighed, allowing her shoulders to sag,"I'm really not sure what I wanted to hear."

"What? You'd rather that he was like how he was earlier?" Blake couldn't help but let that slip out in response to the heiress's comment, no matter how undeserved it may be. "That's a little cold, even for someone like you."

In response, and to no surprise on Blake's part, Weiss's concern morphed into an icy glare. "Oh, come on. You know that's not what I meant."

An all-too-knowing sigh escaped from Blake's lips. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry."

_We never really patched things up from what happened at the docks…Blake_ noted idly. She leaned her back on the wooden door behind her, which caused it to creak slightly. _Even now, the tension's still there._

Aforementioned tension wasn't as palpable as the last time they talked one-on-one; but then again, their last actual talk was more of a yelling match–a fairly one-sided one, at that–so that wasn't really saying much. A stray cat and dog would have had less tension between them than they did at that moment.

For a near fifteen minutes, Weiss had screamed at her–not just for running away from them, but also for roping Kaneki into something that had nothing to do with him. Of course, Blake tried arguing that he insisted on joining her, but the heiress wasn't having any of that. She continued to blame Blake for what happened to the half-ghoul, swearing up and down that none of it would have ever happened if she had just left running away to running away, and left the White Fang and whatever past she had with them alone. At no point did Blake ever think one of her accusations fair; but still, she found it hard to blame Weiss for any of them.

For all of her posturing as someone better than the average person, Weiss was still very much like other people–in terms of her emotions, at the very least. Someone who was relatively close to her had been severely injured and crippled, so the accusations weren't coming out of her mouth as if they'd been thought upon for days. They were all emotional-_very_ emotional-responses, to a situation she had little understanding of.

That's why, knowing that there was no way she'd listen to what really happened, Blake stormed out from the room and to Kaneki's, allowing nothing to be resolved in between them for the time being. Unfortunately, that time being continued on for much longer than it should have.

That didn't mean that things between them stayed as bad as they were. They hadn't improved much, but they _had_ improved.

Still, despite the improvement, Blake wasn't about to start trying to convince herself that it actually meant anything more than that. They were still far from any sort of resolution with one another. All they did, and all they _were_ doing, was ignore the issue entirely.

"No, don't worry about it," Weiss reassured her after a bit of silence, shoulders sagging slightly while she did so. "I can totally understand why you wouldn't be in the best of moods right now, after all that's happened."

With that, more silence thundered through the air between them, causing more awkwardness to arise and permeate the atmosphere. For a good few minutes, things just remained like that.

That was until one of them decided to finally break the silence. "Hey Blake, do you mind if I ask you a question?" Weiss asked.

"Depends on what the question is," Blake replied, shrugging.

"Do you know what Kaneki was rambling on about earlier?" The question made Blake's entire body freeze where it stood. "I could tell by how you reacted to it that earlier wasn't your first time seeing him act like that, so I was wondering—"

"No, I can't," Blake firmly interrupted her teammate before she could finish talking.

Silence once again filled the air between them. Shooting her a look of shock, Weiss asked, "May I know why?"

"It… I just don't think it's something _I_ should be telling you," Blake explained, making sure to put an emphasis on 'I' as she spoke.

It wasn't that Blake didn't want to tell Weiss about what she had heard at the docks, but it just didn't feel right disclosing such information about Kaneki without consulting him first. It would be like him telling someone about her previous White Fang ties without ever telling her, and she didn't want to do something like that to him.

Weiss opened her mouth to respond, but after a second, she simply closed it again and allowed another sigh to escape from her. "Fine, I'll just ask him when he wakes up then," she stated, uncrossing her arms and letting them fall limply to her sides.

There was another elongated silence. Reaching a hand up and massaging the bridge of her nose, Weiss asked, "Why must the two of you be so impossible when it comes to giving us much-needed information?"

Taken off-guard by her teammate's rather open complaint, Blake blinked at the girl before then letting out an amused scoff and smiling slightly. "Don't take it too personally," she said, sending a wayward glance towards the door next to her. "We don't do it out of spite, or anything."

"You don't think I already know that?" Weiss scoffed. "Please, I know that you two like to act all distant and mysterious, but you guys aren't _that_ hard to figure out."

"Is that so?" A light chuckle escaped from Blake's mouth.

"Mhm," the heiress hummed back in response, a smile of her own beginning to show itself on the corners of her lips.

After that, nothing else was said in between them, only once again reaffirming the point Blake had thought of earlier.

Things between the two of them were getting better. It was just that nothing was being solved.

* * *

Kaneki glanced over at Haise, raising his brow to indicate his confusion with what was being shown to him. "I assume that you want me to go up and look through it, right?" He asked, returning his gaze to what he was referring to.

"Mhm," Haise hummed back in reply, closing his eyes as he did so, probably to add onto the cheekiness of it all.

The half ghoul didn't say anything after that, electing to just keep his gaze locked on to what they were talking about, and just stare silently at that instead. All the while, he pondered what he should do next.

Obviously, the best thing for Kaneki to do in this situation was to stay where he stood and elicit more information from his doppelganger; but, then again, there was absolutely no guarantee that Haise would answer any of the questions he asked, asking anything might just be a waste of time.

Letting out a sigh, Kaneki shook his head and began to move himself towards the subject of their conversation, only stopping when he was standing half an arm's length from it. Reaching a hand up and pressing its scaled fingertips up against the the object's surface, the half ghoul was finally able to confirm his earlier assumption about the object to be true.

The thing the two of them had been talking about was a window–just a plain old window that one would see in any ordinary person's home. The only weird thing about it-and this was ultimately the detail that made Kaneki wary of it in the first place-was the fact that the window was just floating in the middle of the air, one-hundred percent independent of anything that could possibly justify why it currently sat eye level with the two of them.

Peering through the somewhat opaque glass, Kaneki found himself looking at what he figured to be a top-down view of something that he couldn't clearly make from the distance it was from the window.

_What is that? _Kaneki leaned into the window, hoping that, by getting closer to it, he'd be better able to make out whatever it was his doppelganger wanted to show him. _Wait… _

Leaning in so close to the window that his forehead was almost touching the glass, Ken squinted his eyes at the object.

_Is that—?_

Before Kaneki could finish asking himself that question, a sudden pressure slammed right into the back of his head. He soon found that the glass was beginning to take up the majority of whatever was left of his avaliable vision.

_Fast._

* * *

It all went by so fast-so fast that Kaneki could barely even comprehend what was going on.

One moment, he had been looking through a window, down at something that was way too far away to clearly make out. The next, he was lying on the ground, and his face felt as if someone had lit it on fire.

Ignoring the pulsating aching that engulfed his entire body, the disoriented half ghoul pressed his palms to the ground under him and began to push against it. Almost immediately, his limbs, which were still very much feeling the effects of being thrown headfirst through a high-up window, began crying out in protest. Still, he ignored their screaming and somehow managed to get himself up to his hands and knees.

_What…_He shook his head violently to clear it of cobwebs…_What the hell just happened?_

"Hey, you okay?" Haise asked him, the question being accompanied by the faintest of tapping noises from his right. "I guess I overdid it there." Another one of those sheepish chuckles. "Sorry about that!"

A crack resonated through the air as Kaneki's eyes shot open, fixating upon his counterpart. His eyes were wide and wild as they stared up furiously at Haise, who was looking down at him, a single knee placed on the ground.

With every fiber of his being, Kaneki wanted to spit slews of curses at his attacker, to wrap his hands around his throat and strangle the life out of his cheeky copy. He was actually considering it, but before he could do so, a peculiar sound hit his ears and drew his attention away.

_Is that…? _He turned his head to face the direction the sound was originating from. Eyes widened immensely, the half ghoul felt his heart stop beating in his chest when his eyes fell upon what was making the noise.

"Ah, I see you've already found what I wanted to show you," Haise commented, his voice still filled with all of his earlier cheekiness, despite what they were currently looking at.

"Wh-what…?" Kaneki tried to ask, but his words kept getting caught in his throat.

"Oh, that?" Glancing over at his counterpart, Kaneki found that Haise's smile from earlier was gone from his face. "I just thought I'd let you have a little glimpse of what I see everyday."

Returning his gaze back to what they were talking about, Kaneki opened his mouth to say something…anything, but all of the sudden, it felt like rubber cement had dried up inside his throat, leaving him completely speechless. He honestly didn't even know what he _could_ say, much less _what_ to say. The sight in front of him...It was just so utterly _surreal_, that just coming to terms with the fact that it was there felt near impossible to him.

"You see, I meant every word when I said that you were stronger than me," Haise continued, his voice now lacking any and all emotion. "I truly do believe that you're stronger than me, both physically and mentally."

There, just a few strides away from where the Kaneki knelt, was _himself_–pure white hair and all–chained with rusty chains to a wooden chair that was all too familiar to him. His head was bound in a way that forced his neck to be bent backwards at all times, making it so that he'd always be looking up at the ceiling–a horrifying emphasis being putting on **looking**, because of the fact his eyes were being forcefully kept open with metal hooks on string. The very same was true about his mouth, which was currently baring all of his teeth, it was forced open so wide.

"Now, could you do me a favor," Haise's voice sounded much closer than it did before, "and **start acting like it.**"

Suddenly, something grabbed Kaneki by the hair and pulled on it roughly, forcing it so that he was now looking up at the ceiling, very much like how his copy had been forced to do so. "You see, I can understand that you've been through a lot." A chill went down Kaneki's spine when he felt Haise's ice cold breath hit the skin of his ear. "I cannot, however, understand it when someone as strong as yourself chooses to sit around and wallow in self-pity."

With his neck bent backwards like it was, Ken found himself staring up at the ceiling. There, he noticed that there was something shiny and reflective on it, and from what he could see, it was pointing right down at the seated copy of himself.

"That, that right there." A sudden jerk and the half ghoul's eyes were back onto his copy. "Is what I see every time I look at you."

As he was being forced to stare at himself by his darker-haired counterpart, Kaneki noticed that there was something shiny and reflective on the him that was tied up as well, though much less so than whatever was on the ceiling. Even from as far away as he was, he could tell that whatever it was, it was trailing down the outline of his copy's nose and into his mouth.

"Now, I know you've read as many books as I have." A sudden push and Kaneki was back to where he began: lying face first on the ground. "I'm sure that you'll be able to put two and two together, and figure what I'm trying to say with this."

As Kaneki tried to push himself back up from the ground, the noise from earlier hit his ears.

"Now, you may be asking yourself about what reason me showing you this serves. Lucky for you, I'm about to tell you that reason, _right now_." There was silence for a moment, and then there was a whispering as loud as any yell. "If you want to work with _her_ anytime in the near future, and I _highly_ recommend that you do if you want to complete that deal of ours...You're going to have to grow up."

Kaneki was finally able to place what the sound was.

"Because trust me, she isn't going to tolerate any of this self-pitying that you're doing. You and however bad your past may be isn't going to mean a thing to her. I know that much from experience."

It was…

"So, consider this your last and final warning about the subject."

…it was…

"I'm letting you use my body and, no matter how much stronger than you are than me, it's still **my** body, and I can take back control any time I want. So..."

…_gurgling_.

"**Grow. The fuck. Up.**"

**-Chapter End-**

So, that's a wrap. I burned myself out writing the first half of my chapter's notes, so don't expect this one to be long at all. I'm pretty much just going to say one thing and leave.

Bye…

I am done now.

*leaves*


	20. Chapter 17: Odd Number Pair

Hey, yo! What's up, guys? It's been a long time since you've seen anything from my ass, huh?

Well, I have to apologize for that. I'm not even going to front, I totally dropped the ball. I put a lot on myself for the two-year anniversary of this story and I kinda burned myself out, that burnout turned into laziness and now we're here, three weeks past the normal deadline with only a third of what I promised done (I managed to gather enough energy to rewrite the third and fourth chapters).

Also, happy, two-year anniversary guys!

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Bullshit.

**-Chapter 17: Odd Number Pair**

Yang didn't know _what _she expected to find when she walked back to Kaneki's room; however, she should have expected what she found, given the two people that had been left alone to watch it.

In retrospect, leaving Blake and Weiss together definitely wasn't the _best_ idea she'd ever come up with, especially since their entire job was taking care of a friend who just experienced two mental breakdowns in less than an hour. Unfortunately, she hadn't really had much choice in the matter.

Ruby was still only fifteen years old, after all. She needed her sleep, and it _was_ getting late. Besides, Yang didn't want her seeing too much of Kaneki acting like how he was.

Despite her being the older sister, Yang didn't _want_ to coddle her team leader; but there were, of course, places where she had to draw the line. A close friend having a mental and emotional breakdown was one of those things Ruby definitely didn't need to see.

However, that didn't lessen the tension between her remaining teammates.

It was clear from the moment Yang saw the two standing across from each other, saying nothing, that nothing between them had improved. The tension that was hanging in the air highlighted that fact very clearly.

For every second she spent standing in that awkward tension, Yang felt more and more compelled to reach out and help the two solve whatever issues still existed between them, but she had to stop herself before she could.

"So, how is he?" Unfortunately, despite her wishes, Yang knew that it probably wasn't a good idea to spark a confrontation between the two, especially with everything that had been happening to Kaneki. "Is he doing okay, or is he still…y'know? Freaking out?"

As it turned out, speaking up really did do wonders for the two standing in front of her. At the very least, it got both of them to look up from the floor.

The two of them blinked at her, like a pair of owls looking at something they didn't quite understand, and then turned to face one another. They stayed like that for a good while, before Weiss shrugged her shoulders and cocked her head over in Yang's general direction–a clear sign of who the heiress wanted to do the talking in this situation.

Actually, considering all that happened tonight, having Blake do all the talking was probably the appropriate decision.

"He's—" Before Blake could even start, Kaneki's door suddenly opened.

Knowing that there was only one person could open the door, the three immediately turned to face where the sound came from.

Again, Yang didn't know what she expected to see when she turned towards the door, but again, she felt like she should've expected what she did she.

He was a complete and utter mess, Ken Kaneki was. He was standing in his room's doorway, leaning his body onto the frame in such a way that made it clear that he was doing so to keep up. His hair was all messy, and there wasn't an inch of his clothes that didn't have a wrinkle; and if that wasn't enough of a sign that he's been having a bad night, he looked like he just sprinted through all of a marathon set in the deserts of Vacuo, what with the amount of sweat pouring down him.

All of that, combined with the fact he was hiding his face behind his bangs, made Yang worry about her teammate immensely.

Not, of course, that she wasn't _already_ worried.

It was hard not to be after seeing how he broke down like he did. The way Kaneki had been acting earlier scared the ever-loving bejeebus out of Yang. She never thought him to be a cold, emotionless person like Weiss, but she personally believed him to be someone who liked to hide how he felt–it was an aspect of his personality that she picked up on when they first met. However, at no point during their friendship did she expect all those hidden feelings to come out like…well, like _that_. A trickle, a little bit at a time–that was what she expected. Not all at once.

So, as Yang watched the teetering teen and wondered about what he was going to say to them, she couldn't help but worry.

Would he open up about what he was going on about? Did she even want to know in the first—?

"The three of you can go back to your room now." The words that came out of Kaneki's mouth surprised Yang, but she knew that knowing him, they shouldn't have. "Sorry about keeping you all up so late with all the fuss I've made. It won't happen again, I swear." There was a strange reluctance to his words, that made him sound like a little kid who was being forced to apologize by a parent.

Yang opened her mouth to ask why he sounded so reluctant, but before she could, she was beat to the punch.

"What _exactly_ are you apologizing for?" Blake asked, her amber eyes narrowed in what Yang assumed was a mix of confusion and irritation. "Didn't we just talk about this with you? You're our friend. None of us mind having to lose sleep to make sure you're alright."

For whatever reason (sarcasm), Yang expected Kaneki to be surprised by the revelation, but no signs (_well_, no obvious ones), appeared on his face.

Actually, he didn't react to it at all. He just kept standing there for several long moments, before finally taking a deep drag of air in through his nostrils and then letting it out.

"Yeah, I get that much." Kaneki still didn't look up. "I just don't feel like it's something any of you should be doing for me to begin with."

His words pricked at Yang irritatingly. "Then what exactly do you expect all us to do when you start acting like that?" Her words came out much more aggressive than she had originally intended. "Go back to our room and act like our friend _**isn't**_ having a mental breakdown?"

"No." Kaneki shook his head slowly. "That wasn't what I was trying to say." Doing so just as slowly, the half ghoul raised his head to face them, revealing to the three what he was trying to hide behind his hair. "I really do appreciate the fact you four would go through the trouble, but it's just not something you should be doing in the first place."

The smile that suddenly appeared on Kaneki's lips greatly clashed with the dull, empty look he had in his eyes. "I'm almost twenty years old." He let out a chuckle that had zero energy backing it whatsoever. "I should be long past acting like that, don't you think?"

An uncomfortable silence filled the air, and Yang immediately found herself at a loss for words. Not because it was such an utterly baffling thing that she didn't know what to say back; but because she knew that everything she _wanted_ to say wouldn't help. So she stayed quiet—no matter how unfair his words were, not just to them, but himself too.

Yeah, the ever emotionless Ken Kaneki _finally_ cracked under the pressure and _finally_ showed them all emotion. Yeah, big freaking whoop–all that it proved was something that should be the case with any normal human being. The guy had a limit as to the amount of punishment he could take emotionally. Who didn't?

Now, just because he was almost at the point he could no longer be considered a teen, that limit suddenly meant nothing? Ha, what a load of crap.

If it weren't for the fact that the ghoul just came off a mental breakdown not too long ago, Yang would be laying into his self-belittling ass. _Hard_.

Instead, Yang decided that she would _still_ lay into him, but in a much more accommodating way (which meant she was going to say what she wanted, but with her inside voice).

"That's a load of—!" The blonde began her tirade, but was cut off before she could truly begin.

"So, that's why I wanted to ask all of you to help me with growing up."

Yang, Weiss, and Blake all stared at him in shock.

"Wait…_what_?"

* * *

"So…how did things go last night?" The question left Ruby's mouth tentatively as her eyes traveled from roommate to roommate, all of which looked more bedraggled as the last. She couldn't help but wonder about how long each of them stayed up in support of their teammate after Yang had told her to go to bed–something that she resented immensely. "What happened with Kaneki? Is he going to be alright or…?"

"He's going to be fine." The one to respond to the question was, unsurprisingly, Yang, who did so with an optimism that confused Ruby. It was like her older sister meant for the emotion to be there, but lacked the energy to fully deliver on it, thus giving her answer a sort of empty quality to it.

Given the circumstances, it wouldn't have surprised Ruby at all to find out that the lack of emotion behind her words was because of a lack of sleep, but she'd known her sister to speak like that for other reasons Usually, it was to be sarcastic after being forced to do something she really didn't want to do, so she couldn't say that she definitely got what being implied.

"The four of us talked and we managed to—" The sleep deprived blonde let out a loud and drawn out yawn, reaching up to cover her mouth, before then letting her posture turn from fully straight to slouching so low that it looked like she was trying to touch her toes. "Ugh…y'know what? Blake, you explain what happened with Kaneki. I'm way too tired to deal with this right now."

"Hey, what makes you think I'm in any better shape than you are?" Blake grumbled as she rubbed at the bags that, at some point, formed underneath her eyes. "Last time I checked, we were _all_ awake the same amount of time."

"Yeah, but I'm not the one who decided to go and lock lips with the guy." Yang's retort was master class as scratched at her side, all while dragging herself and her feet over to her bed. Throwing herself onto it, she buried her head into one of her pillows and added in a voice muffled by fabric, "As far as I'm concerned, all things related to Ken Kaneki now automatically fall underneath your jurisdiction." She raised a hand up towards the ceiling and extended a thumb. "Go get 'em, tiger!"

Yang let her arm fall back to the mattress with an unceremonious thud, and Ruby knew that there'd be no way Blake would be able to argue against the her sister's declaration. This, obviously, didn't sit well with her dark-haired teammate, but again, she really wasn't going to be able to do anything about it.

"_Pft!_" The sound of a certain heiress being barely able to hold back a snort of laughter caused an awkward smile to crack Ruby's lips and one of the ears on top of Blake's to twitch a little, probably out of irritation.

* * *

Blake couldn't help but be a little irritated by the responsibility that was suddenly forced onto her shoulders by Yang, who was in the enviable position of being in a state of complete unconsciousness. Dammit, she wanted to be asleep too.

"So, that's basically all that happened after you left." Blake let out a relieved sigh when she finally finished giving her team leader the explanation she had been tasked with giving. In all honesty, it didn't take that long to fully explain everything, as Ruby remained silent throughout the entirety of it, but she was so tired that it felt longer than it actually was. "Any questions?"

Ruby blinked owlishly in response to the question, a second passing before her brows suddenly furrowed and her lips formed a contemplative frown. "No, I'm good," she answered, though her expression and tone of voice did little to convince Blake that it was genuine.

"Are you sure? You don't look like it." Blake's reply came out a lot blunter than she wanted, but she figured that Ruby would understand if she was offended by it. The Faunus hadn't gotten a single second of sleep since yesterday morning and she knew that her team leader was aware of the fact.

"Yeah," Ruby said, chuckling awkwardly. Scratching at the back of her head, she sheepishly added, "I'm just having a little trouble processing it all." There was a pause in which she took a glance down at her feet, before looking back up and continuing to speak. "So…Kaneki wants help 'growing up'?"

"Apparently," Blake replied with a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumping. "Don't ask me about what exactly he means by that, though."

The request Kaneki asked of them was a frustrating thing for Blake to have to think about. To her, it represented yet another shift in the narrative-another plot twist, so to speak. One that wasn't needed–or appreciated–at all by her in the slightest.

Not to imply that she wasn't happy that Kaneki was attempting to open up to them more. She was ecstatic, actually. She liked him. She liked him a lot. So to see him strip himself of whatever mental block that was stopping him from doing so made a familiar warmth in her chest appear and her jaw drop a little, but that chest-locked heat was quickly snuffed out and the moment she put any thought into the matter.

Kaneki, for all the things he was, was an extremely stubborn person. So, to see him so suddenly change his mind on something wasn't just strange to her, it was entirely out of character. Something had happened to him between the moment she left him in his room to recuperate, and when he emerged from said room, that much was clear to her. She just didn't know _what_.

Upon realizing that, Blake, of course, asked what had caused the sudden change of heart. Surprisingly, he answered her question without any protest or dramatics–he just simply answered the question, which, she had to admit, was quite refreshing given the climate of their previous conversations.

Apparently, Haise had contacted him in his mind while he was unconscious and told him, rather aggressively, to 'grow up'.

Initially, that worried her, as she didn't know if the specter in his brain was manipulating him into doing his bidding so that he could take over at some later point; but after hearing the lengths Haise would go through to get his point across, her concern died down a bit. Still, she couldn't help but feel a small bit wary about his request after that.

"Well, I guess the only thing we can do now is help him as much as we can," Ruby stated, her voice resigned, before letting out a light sigh.

The frown on Blake's face deepened. Admitting that was the very last thing she wanted to do, but unfortunately, that was the only thing she could do as of the moment.

"Alright, you can head to bed," Ruby stated as she planted one of her hands on her hips and the other balled into a fist in the center of her chest, an almost cringe-worthy amount of energy in her voice. "I'll hold down the fort until you guys have slept enough!"

Nodding, Blake didn't hesitate in expending what was left of her remaining energy to dash over to her bed and slip under her blanket in one single, smooth motion.

Now, with her entire body covered by her covers and supported by her firm mattress, she closed her eyes and felt herself succumb to the throes of sleep very quickly. Near instantly actually.

* * *

The sound of faint knocking on wood ripped Blake from the throes of sleep, which was something that she, being part cat, didn't appreciate at all. It was one of the biggest downsides of having superior senses to a human, she found.

Sleep, especially for a part-cat Faunus like herself, was light most of the time and could be easily interrupted by the errant bump in the night. Fortunately, she could fall back asleep pretty easily, which made up for it to some extent, but she'd much rather just be able to sleep normally.

Grumbling to herself and turning onto her side, Blake tried her best to fall back asleep, but she was stopped from doing so when she heard the sound of a door opening.

_Hm?_ Now intrigued by whatever it was that made that sound, she forced open her eyes and found herself wrapped in complete darkness. Blinking at the lack of anything around her, she wondered why her night vision hadn't activated yet, but then quickly realized why the reason why. _Oh. Right. I forgot._

Reaching out into the darkness in front of her, Blake balled her hands into fists the moment she felt the smooth fabric wrapped around her touch her palms, and jerked it downward, releasing her head from the warm, stuffy interior of her blanket cocoon.

Cool air pouring into her lungs, she immediately found herself flinching at the sudden shift in brightness that the outside world presented. As it turned out, going from pitch black darkness to any form of lighting wasn't a good idea. She blamed her mistake on her sleep-deprivation.

"Oh, it's you! W-what's up?" The sound of Ruby trying too hard to be casual caught the Blake's attention. She could immediately tell by her team leader's tone of voice that the person at their front door wasn't Kaneki or anybody from team JNPR–as she had long since graduated from being uncomfortable around any of them.

"Oh, nothing really." The voice that answered was one that Blake was familiar with, though not overly so. In total, she'd probably only ever heard it twice. The voice belonged to one of the transfers–Emerald Sustrai, if she remembered correctly. "I was just in the neighborhood and thought that it would probably be a good idea to introduce you all to Emma."

"'Emma'?" Ruby voiced the question that popped into Blake's own head when that name was mentioned.

"Yeah, Emma." There was a momentary pause between words punctuated by the sound of shuffling feet, which Blake assumed was because Emerald was retrieving this 'Emma'. "We had to leave her behind in Mistral for a couple days because of some personal issues, but we were finally able to get her here. She's the fourth member of our team."

Now immensely curious as to who the transfer student was talking about, Blake rolled onto her side and angled herself so that her head was right next to the edge of the bed. Peeking up over it, she found herself staring at her team leader's back and the fronts of two people, which were both obscured by the prior.

From what she could see, the one on Ruby's left was Emerald–Blake could tell by the skin tone and hair–which, of course meant that the person to the right, who looked a head shorter, had to be Emma.

Blake, from her current position with her head discreetly poking up off the side of her bed, couldn't see a lot of what the newly arrived transfer looked like due to the inadvertent interference of Ruby's back, but she could see that the girl had long black hair-hair that was tied up into twin-tails on the side of her head-and clothes of same color.

"Oh, um, h-hi!" Ruby greeted in her usual awkward way. "It's nice to get to meet you. I'd introduce you to the rest of my team and all, but…" She took a glance back over her shoulder, "…right now is kind of a bad time."

"Ah, you guys have a rough night?" Emerald asked. Ruby gave a quick nod of her head. "Well, I wouldn't want to be a bother, or anything. We'll make sure to come back at a better time. Wouldn't want everyone thinking that she just popped up from out of nowhere. "

"Y-yeah!" Her team leader jumped to agree with the temporary transfer. "A better time. Definitely! See you then!"

With that, the meeting between the three girls ended as fast as it began. The two visitors said their goodbyes (well, Emerald did–Emma didn't say anything at all) and Ruby closed the door as they parted ways, leaving the eavesdropping Faunus with a single question: _Who is this Emma person?_

* * *

Blake watched the match going on before her with more interest than the rest, partially because of the fact that all four members of team CRDL were a part of it (and truth be told,she would greatly enjoy seeing the racist pricks get their asses handed to them), and largely because Kaneki was their opponent–all by himself, might she add–and she knew that he'd give her exactly what she wanted. Her boyf—_teammate_ carried a disdain for team CRDL that rivaled even her own because of the way they'd treat Velvet. He was much more subtle about it than she was, but she didn't fail to miss all the glares he'd send their way when he thought no one was looking.

Cardin tries to swing his mace down onto Kaneki. The latter steps to the side and turns to avoid getting hit. Dodges effortlessly. He grabs his opponent's mace by the handle. Pulls towards body. Shifts body with pull–is now facing opposite direction, towards crowd. Back of arm wrapped around neck. Kicks leg out from underneath opponent. Body now in air. Kaneki slams palm into stomach. Is no longer in air. All happens fast. Very.

"Oh, that one's gotta hurt," Jaune who was sitting with his team in the row in front of her, commented. Blake could tell by the way he spoke that he was enjoying the show. To be honest, she couldn't begrudge him for it. She was enjoying it too.

Russell attempts to get the jump on Kaneki as he finishes earlier attack. Doesn't work. Target is already aware of his presence. Pushes shoulder into stomach as his daggers are raised in the air. Attacker is flipped over defender's shoulders onto an already supine Cardin. Lands with a thud. Back of head happens to hit head of dropped mace on way down. Metallic clang rips through air.

"Hm, I wasn't aware that Kaneki could fight on such a level," Phyrra voiced her own thoughts on the match as she cupped her fingers around her chin. "He's barely even breaking a sweat."

"Well, yeah, of course you weren't aware of that," Yang, who was watching the match with much less interest than Blake, said offhandedly. If the Faunus had to guess a reason, it was probably because she already knew he was going to win in the end. "This is the first time you guys have seen him fight."

Now, Sky attempts to ambush Kaneki. Runs at the half ghoul from his back. Hefts axe over left shoulder and tries to bring it down onto his opponent's own. Opponent donkey kicks bottom half of handle before it reaches. Handle goes into gut of Sky and its wielder doubles over from pain immediately. Kaneki turns on his heel to face his would-be attacker. He wraps arms around mid-section back-first. Lifts opponent up, does so in a way that causes enemy to flip mid-lift. Sky's legs are now sitting on Kaneki's shoulders. Latter turns toward pile of bodies, shifts his body backwards before bouncing back in the opposite direction. Slams Sky's back into teammates. All Aura levels lower to near nothing instantly. Only about a sliver left for all three.

"Oh, oh, oh! He just did a gut-wrench power bomb in the middle of an actual fight! That's so awesome!" Nora gushed. Blake didn't understand what she was trying to reference with that name, though. "I gotta try that when it's my turn to spar!"

Ren glanced at the practically bouncing girl sitting next to her and shook his head. "I'm not sure that's the best of ideas," he stated in usual flat way. "I mean, not everyone is as disorganized as team CRDL is."

"It'd still be fun to try though~!"

Upon finishing third member of CRDL, the last remaining, Dove, throws sword at the side of Kaneki's head. He reacts to it right as it almost hits his throat. Leans back and lets it fly right under his chin. Reaches hand up, catches it by the blade. Smoothly flips it in hand and slams pommel into the stomach of Sky like a makeshift hammer. Does so with enough force that it is felt to the very bottom of the pile. Rest of aura is gone. All three are eliminated, leaving a defenseless Dove remaining. Last of team CRDL realizes position. Gives up immediately. Almost everyone laughs. Goodwitch doesn't. Reminds Dove of team's self-imposed rule of not being able to yield. Kaneki doesn't hesitate.

Kaneki runs up to Dove in a near instant. Continues using caught sword as weapon. Uses its pommel to cause the last remaining member of team CRDL to double over. Left knee meets with forehead as Dove does so. Aura bar dissipates immediately. Kaneki wins.

The entire room around Blake erupted into applause in response to seeing the final member of team CRDL go down. It was something she had expected given all that was _working_ against him in the fight–the word 'working' being in large quotes as she said that.

To explain away his week-long absence from class after what happened at the docks, Ozpin had originally thought to tell everyone that Kaneki was in the infirmary due to some rather severe injuries that he had received during said incident. The explanation was vague, as it was intended to be.

Under the guise of maintaining Kaneki's privacy, the headmaster didn't divulge the nature of his injury, but implied that it was of a serious enough nature to warrant the recovery timeline of 'indefinite'. So, to her teammates, it must've seemed that he wasn't going to be seen in class, much less fighting, for a good while.

Instead, Kaneki came back and inserted himself into a four-on-one match in a little over a week's time. Blake was sure that there were some among her classmates that were impressed by that feat alone, but he absolutely crushed said four in less than a minute's time, so that probably finished off the rest, if there were any.

"And that's the match," Ms. Goodwitch, who had been standing off to the side observing the match the entire time, announced as she walked into the center of the circular ring. "I must say, Mr. Kaneki, you did well despite only having just come back from injury today. Fight like that, and when the time comes, qualifying for the tournament should be no problem."

"Ah, thank you," Kaneki replied in his usual sheepish manner, bowing his head slightly in appreciation.

Up in the stands, Blake couldn't help but find the entire exchange slightly amusing. The teacher knew about what _actually _happened with Kaneki, so she was lying through her teeth as she said all that. That being said, she didn't know if that meant their teacher's praise was genuine or not.

Ms. Goodwitch didn't miss a beat after receiving her thanks. Looking down at the scroll in her hand, she turned to the rest of the class and continued speaking. "Alright, I know that we're running low on time, but we should be able to fit in just one more match." She looked over the class sitting in the stands. Suddenly, her gaze eyes stopped right on Blake. "Ms. Belladonna, I see that you're actually paying attention today." The Faunus in question blinked at the sudden call out, straightening her back unconsciously. "Would you like to be the next to fight? I've noticed that you've become much more… _Docile_, as of late."

Blake's eyes immediately shot open in response to the jab, and she turned her head to face a direction anywhere other at her instructor. She just couldn't help the embarrassment. Insults were nothing new to her, due to her life as a Faunus and former White Fang member, but that only extended to insults that she felt had no real merit–the kind that a typical, schoolyard bully, like Cardin, would ever utter with any amount of conviction. Ones that had an actual basis behind them, and weren't just said because of flat out hate, always tended to hit a lot closer to home for her.

Blake glanced at Kaneki, who was standing next to Ms. Goodwitch, decked out in a new version of his old combat uniform. To her irritation, he looked like he might have agreed. _Note to self, _she thought, _do something to emasculate Kaneki next time we're alone. He's getting too cocky._

Feeling the weight of all the eyes being focused into her, Blake opened her mouth to give an answer, but any form of answer was killed in her throat when the sound of someone knocking on wood cut her off.

Turning her attention to the source, Blake realized that she was looking at a face that was familiar, and yet also greatly unfamiliar to her.

"Ah, you're Emma Blackery, aren't you?" Ms. Goodwitch asked. "The student from Haven who just arrived in Vale on Saturday?" The girl in question, who was now standing, nodded her head, her black pigtails bouncing with her head movements. "Ah, alright then." Ms. Goodwitch glanced down at her scroll, before returning it back to the freshly arrived transfer. "Who would you like to be your opponent?"

There was no hesitation in the girl's response. Literally none. There was about a second between when their instructor had asked the question and the response given.

Again opting to use her actions to talk for her, Emma pointed at who she wanted to fight and Blake found herself immediately disagreeing with the choice.

She was pointing right at Kaneki.

* * *

Ken Kaneki.

That was the name that Haise went by nowadays. Neo didn't like it. Not at all. It was different from what she was used to. A lot of things about him were different from what she was used to—not just his name. Everything, from his personality to his physical appearance, was different now. Actually, if the image of his face hadn't already been burned into the depths of her mind, she would've thought him to be an entirely different person.

"Ah, my apologies, but Mr. Kaneki has already participated in a match, so—" Ms. Goodwitch began, but she was cut off by the person standing next to her.

"—No, no." The imposter cut his teacher off before she could finish, doing so with a sharp crack of his index finger. "It's fine."

It was clear to her now. The person standing in front of her, down in the center of the ring next to the Beacon combat instructor–Goodwitch–wasn't the same person as Haise Sasaki. Not by a long shot.

"It's not like my last match was much of a challenge anyway." Yep, definitely not the same person. The Haise she knew would never so blatantly talk shit about another person, at least, never so openly. "So…" One of his hands–the one covered up in bandages–resting right on the center of his stomach, as he shot her a contradicting look. His lips formed a friendly smile, but his eyes were shooting a glare at her. "…I'd be more than happy to be your sparring partner."

Neo, not wanting to be rude, smiled back at the person she inadvertently created and nodded her head.

In the end, it was all her fault.

Her actions had directly caused the creation of Ken Kaneki. If she hadn't done what she had, the man standing before her wouldn't be doing so as an enemy that needed to be coerced into doing anything. He'd be at her side as an ally. Just like how it always should be.

_Maybe this is what he felt like everyday, _Neo thought as she made her way down to the arena, a pair of dull grey eyes glaring at her the entire way down. _To reach out towards someone who loathed you entirely… _She could feel it–the pure animosity he was showing her. There was no chance that her current facade was actually fooling him. He's already seen it way too many times for that to happen. Thankfully, it wasn't meant to fool _him_, at least not entirely. _I must say that it doesn't feel good at all._

What she was doing… It was a crapshoot, a complete and utter leap of faith on her part. One that solely relied on the person standing before her with a sword, sitting newly-produced in his hand.

Neo knew that this current iteration of Haise, Kaneki, absolutely hated her, despised her, loathed her more than anything, but despite that, she was sure that there was a part of him that still cared about her, and she was going to reach deep into his chest and rip that part out of him, back to the surface…

Whether he liked it or not.

**-Chapter End-**

Well, the chapter's done. Neo is here and she's after Kaneki's rear. Nothing is going to end queer. Um…

Bye.


	21. Poem Interlude: Birds and Cages

Look, guys! It's another poem by your resident edge lord, With Death Comes More Death!

Have fun and stay safe! When you stray too close to the edge, you'll probably slip in and never be seen again. Please, be seen again.

This has been a message brought to you by some random writer on the Internet with a sense of self-worth that equals zero.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

My personal philosophy: Work hard enough at life so you can have enough money to buy a gun to shoot yourself with at the age of sixty.

(Man, you hear this fucking edge lord?)

**-Poem Interlude: Birds and Cages-**

Birds are pretty things.  
Rather, ugly ones are rare.  
They're very simple  
So, messing up takes effort.

They only look bad  
When they screech really loudly.  
When you fuck up hard  
And you receive just punishment.

I've always liked birds.  
Why? Probably because I  
Always wanted to  
Become just like them in a way.

They can fly away.  
They can leave when they want to.  
When their meals become  
Rotten, they leave it behind.

Me? I'm not like that.  
I've always been someone who  
Needed a link to  
Someone to get anywhere.

I'm a parasite.  
A living cage who lures in  
And hinders birds'  
Flight so much, they have to stay.

I know I've never  
Been someone who was ever  
Looked for heavily.  
Just a burden, nothing else.

So, I was surprised  
When I saw her standing there.  
Wasn't fooling me,  
Though, I'm sure she wanted that.

The bird before me,  
The paint on her face, I've seen.  
She knows that as well.  
Obviously, there were plans.

I didn't know them  
And honestly, I didn't  
Give a single damn.  
To them, I have no value.

This damn cuckoo bird,  
The one I've got caged up now,  
Probably is what  
They're after with this effort.

After what I just  
Told him, that wasn't  
Going to happen,  
Not yet, at the very least.

He's not matured yet.  
Still an infant, who hasn't  
Done what he should yet.  
What all birds of his kind do.

Until he reaches  
That point, I will continue  
To hold him inside  
My wire-metal insides.

That's what cages do.  
We're tall metal things that birds  
Use for protection  
And, I'm finally fulfilled.

Now, isn't that sweet?

**-Poem End-**

Um… Did you want me to say something else?

Given the quality of the author's note above, how haven't you still not guessed that I'm all out of things to talk about?

(Also, thanks to the editor of this story, FineChyna, for giving me the idea to incorporate cuckoo birds into this poem. Your help is greatly appreciated, fam.)


End file.
